Ching-Yi Wang Vortex Temporum PDF

Spectral Music and Gérard Grisey’s Vortex Temporum I and II
by
CHING-YI WANG
B.F.A. (Taipei National University of the Arts) 2002
M.F.A. (Taipei National University of the Arts) 2005
M.A. (University of California, Davis) 2008
DISSERTATION
Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
In
Music
in the
OFFICE OF GRADUATE STUDIES
of the
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
DAVIS
Approved:
____________________________
Mika Pelo, Chair
____________________________
Pablo Ortiz
____________________________
Laurie San Martin
____________________________
Sam Nichols
Committee in Charge
2012
i
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Abstract
This dissertation provides aesthetic and historical perspectives of the French spectral
music and offers an analysis of Gérard Grisey’s late work Vortex Temporum I and II,
which was written in 1994–96 and is dedicated to Gérard Zinsstag, Salvatore Sciarrino,
and Helmut Lachenmann.
Chapter One is an introduction to the spectral movement, including the
characteristics of spectral music and the biographies of three generations of select
spectralists. The remainder of this chapter demonstrates certain essential techniques that
influence the musical style of Grisey.
A brief introduction to the life of Grisey and some trademarks of Grisey’s oeuvres
are presented in Chapter Two. Time concepts, an important facet of Grisey’s work in
general, indicated in Grisey’s essay “Tempus ex Machina” is also outlined here.
In Chapter Three, I present an analysis of the first and second movements of Vortex
Temporum, a composition for chamber ensemble, consisting of six players: piano, flute
(picc/alto/C/bass), Bb clarinet (bass clarinet), violin, viola, and violoncello. In my
analysis, I look at aspects of the work such as its basis in various waveforms and how
contrasts are formed through use of register, and Grisey’s innovative approach to the
ii
temporal parameter. I also investigate the convergence of Grisey’s spectral attitude and
traditional Western classical music in the analysis.
iii
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I would like to heartily thank the members of my
dissertation committee: Mika Pelo, Pablo Ortiz, Laurie San Martin, and Sam
Nichols, for their insightful comments and all the time they put in throughout the
writing of this dissertation. I would also like to thank Kurt Rohde, who gave advice
on the early draft of my dissertation. I am very grateful for my good friend Laura
Brown, who has been my supporter for the past six years and provide suggestions
on writing. I am especially thankful for John Aylward’s encouragement and
generosity in sharing his experience with Vortex Temporum.
I would like to thank my parents and my family, for their unconditional love
and patience along the way. From them, I have learned to pursue my dreams.
Finally, I could not have completed this dissertation without the encouragement and
unfailing support of my husband, Ching-Yen Chung. This dissertation is dedicated
to them.
iv
Table of Contents
Abstract __________________________________________________________________ ii
Acknowledgements ________________________________________________________ iv
Table of Contents___________________________________________________________ v
List of Examples, Figures, and Tables__________________________________________ vii
Introduction _______________________________________________________________ 1
Chapter One: An Introduction to Spectral Music __________________________________ 4
Technological Influences ________________________________________________________ 18
Historical Influence ____________________________________________________________ 25
Proto-spectralist: Scelsi _________________________________________________________ 26
Proto-spectralist: Ligeti _________________________________________________________ 29
Spectralist: ___________________________________________________________________ 30
Spectralist: Murail _____________________________________________________________ 31
Post-spectralist: Saariaho ________________________________________________________ 31
Chapter 2: Introduction to Gérard Grisey _______________________________________ 45
Musical Influences _____________________________________________________________ 46
Musical Time _________________________________________________________________ 53
Some Trademarks of Grisey’s Music _______________________________________________ 64
Chapter 3: Gérard Grisey’s Vortex Temporum ___________________________________ 70
General Content _______________________________________________________________ 70
Vortex Temporum I ____________________________________________________________ 72
Vortex Temporum II____________________________________________________________ 86
Interludes ____________________________________________________________________ 92
v
Summary ________________________________________________________________ 90
Conclusion _______________________________________________________________ 92
Bibliography _____________________________________________________________ 96
vi
List of Examples, Figures, and Tables
Fig. 1.1. 220 Hz FM Modulation___________________________________________24

Ex. 1.1. Gondwana, opening measures 1-8 ___________________________________36
Fig. 1.2. Interpolation____________________________________________________40
Fig. 1.3. Timbral axis ____________________________________________________41
Table 2.1. Grisey’s conception of musical time _______________________________ 52

Table 2.2. A scale of complexity for durations_________________________________54
Fig. 2.1. Periodic durations________________________________________________55
Fig. 2.2a. Arithmetrical progression_________________________________________55
Fig. 2.2b. Geometric progression___________________________________________56
Fig. 2.3a. Acceleration by elision___________________________________________57
Fig. 2.3b. Statistical acceleration ___________________________________________57
Table 2.3. Pieces of Les Espaces Acoustiques _________________________________63
Ex. 2.1. Olivier Messiaen, Couleurs de la Cité Céleste, mm. 40–43 and mm. 87–92___65
Table 3.1: Grisey’s temporal scales_________________________________________ 68

Table 3.2: Vortex Temporum I, broken into sections ____________________________69
Ex. 3.1: Wave forms found in Vortex Temporum I _____________________________ 70
Fig. 3.1: Comparisons of distorted and normal diminished 7th chords_______________72
Fig. 3.2:The initial flute gesture becomes unrecognizable as the movement proceeds __72
Fig. 3.3. Vortex Temporum I, Chord progression from beginning to rehearsal no. 20___74
Fig. 3.4. Diminished 7th chords found in Vortex Temporum and Daphnis et Cloë _____ 75
Fig. 3.5. Common tones between the three main chords in Vortex Temporum I_______75
Table 3.2. Decrease in sixteenth notes by rehearsal number ______________________77
vii
Ex. 3.2. Examples of macro-rhythm found in the first section of Vortex Temporum I __78
Ex. 3.3. Vortex Temporum I, piano solo section, rehearsal nos. 78-82 ______________ 79
Table 3.3 Three materials in the third section of Vortex Temporum I_______________ 80
Ex. 3.4. Vortex Temporum I, the second material of the third section at rehearsal number
69____________________________________________________________________81
Ex. 3.5. Vortex Temporum I, the third material of the third section at reh. number 70 __81
Ex. 3.6. Vortex Temporum I, page 2_________________________________________82
Ex. 3.7a. The opening of Vortex Temporum I__________________________________83
Ex. 3.7b. The opening of Vortex Temporum II ________________________________ 84
Ex. 3.8. The tempo changes in Vortex Temporum II____________________________ 85
Fig. 3.6. Derivation of piano and violoncello parts _____________________________87
viii
1
Introduction
Gérard Grisey (1946–98), one of the key figures of the French spectral movement,
established a high reputation for himself as a composer as well as a teacher of
composition. Spectral composers began their careers in a time of political instability in
France. The French people revolted against the policy of the government in the 1960s and
directly after this period, a group of composers born in the 1940s appeared and began to
compose differently from most composers in their generation.
Spectralist composers such as Grisey and Tristan Murail concerned themselves with
the nature of sound, or rather, the overtone series, emphasizing the acoustical dimensions
of sound, and let “sound objects” be the basis of their works. “Spectral music offered a
formal organization and sonic material that came directly from the physics of sound, as
discovered through science and microphonic access.”1 Spectral composers utilize the
analyzed sound file to create spectral harmonies; it is especially true for Grisey’s musical
composition. At the early stage of his career, Grisey composed music by using
instrumental spectra as a basis for the pitch material. The composers of the French
1
Gérard Grisey, “Did You Say Spectral?” trans. Joshua Fineberg, Contemporary Music Review 19:3
(2000): 1.
2
spectral movement have also shared an interest in the realm of electronic music and tried
to transpose certain conceptual behaviors of electronic music to the acoustic domain.
Furthermore, the timbral details have been a significant aspect in how music is structured.
For them, the notion of timbre is elevated to a principal aspect, as I will discuss further
below.
Grisey scholarship is in high repute in European countries, while it is in its
beginning stages in the U.S. There is literature on Vortex Temporum in French, but
among English sources, there is very little published information on the subject when I
began this research. The purpose of this dissertation is to explore Grisey’s music and
present a comprehensive analysis of Vortex Temporum, an ensemble piece Grisey wrote
in 1996.
An understanding of the music of Grisey may start with the issues of his temporal
thinking. He seems to spend considerable time questing in this area. Grisey has presented
important insight into his temporal evolution in his essay “Tempus ex Machina: A
Composer’s Reflection on Musical Time.” It is my view that Grisey’s Vortex Temporum
provides the application of many of the time concepts he denotes in Tempus ex Machina.
The piece derives its dramatic energy from Grisey’s skillful manipulation of time and
3
timbre between the movements.
The final crucial reason why I am doing this study is my own interest. My Masters
thesis, Memories and Time, in which I briefly discussed Jonathan Kramer’s book The
Time of Music, demonstrated the correlation between texture and form in my own
compositions and illustrated how I dealt with the structural form of my pieces based on
timbral parameters. I have always considered going deeper into the field of musical time
and have been fascinated by striking sonorities in spectral compositions, which are
created through the harmonies, the timbres, and the pitches. Because of the sound world
he created, Grisey’s music especially catches my attention. My interest in Grisey is
further heightened by his skill in manipulating the listener’s perception of time’s passage.
In this dissertation, I will offer a survey of the spectral music and examine how
Vortex Temporum is put together. It is my hope that this paper will serve as an
introduction for interested readers, regardless of their knowledge of the spectral
movement, or the music of Grisey.

4
Chapter One: An Introduction to Spectral Music
In the early 1970s, a new style of music was established in Paris while the modernist
descendants of increasingly sophisticated serialist techniques predominated throughout
Europe. A group of French composers gathered together, sharing similar thoughts
regarding their concerns with the state of composition, and attempted to search out
possible solutions associated with contemporary music. As a result, a French ensemble of
composers and musicians called L’Itinéraire was founded in 1973, which included
Gérard Grisey (1946–98), Tristan Murail (b. 1947), Michäel Lévinas (b. 1949), Roger
Tessier (b. 1939), and Hugues Dufourt (b. 1943). The mission of L’Itinéraire was to
investigate new approaches toward the conception and execution of music. The initial
primary goal of the composers in L’Itinéraire was that the new works they would create
would not be conceived using the same methods of many of the structuralist works of
their day. It was soon thereafter that L’Itinéraire became the starting point for an
aesthetic movement of what would later be called spectral music, or spectralism.2
Spectralism has become one of the most important approaches used in contemporary
music since the 1980s.
2
Composer and philosopher Hughes Dufour used the word “spectralism”, possibly for the first time, in the
article Musique Spectrale from 1979 published in Consequences No. 7, Paris, 1986.
5
Unlike other schools of composition such as serialism and minimalism, spectralism
does not set up a number of strict rules to be followed, but is rather a loose collection of
aesthetical thoughts and practices, shared by a group of composers. The term “spectral” is
“regarded by virtually every major practitioner of the trend as inappropriate, misleadingly
simplistic and extremely reductive.”3 It may give the impression that analysis data of
sound spectra determine all aspects of a work, but, in fact, “the use of spectra, whether
harmonic or non–harmonic, is only the most superficial feature of the music of these
composers.”4 Grisey and Murail, the two central figures of the movement, both explain
the consequences of spectral music in terms of harmony, timbre, time, and form. Certain
features that are in fact important to the approach include (1) possible dialectics between
music’s evolving in radically different times; (2) exploration of all forms of fusion and
the thresholds between different parameters;5 (3) a global approach, rather than a
sequential or ‘cellular’ one; (4) organizational processes of a logarithmic or exponential,
rather than linear, type;6 and (5) using electronic technology as a compositional aid.
Since Murail would not describe this type of music as a “school” and Grisey considered
the name and all descriptions of spectral music to be extremely limiting, Grisey and
3
Julian Anderson, “A Provisional History of Spectral Music,” Contemporary Music Review 19:2 (2000):
7.
4
Ibid.
5
Grisey, “Did You Say Spectral?” 2-3.
6
Tristan Murail, “Target Practice,” trans. Joshua Fineberg, Contemporary Music Review 24:2 (2005): 152.
6
Murail therefore disowned the label.
What these composers share is an attitude and aesthetic, not a system. Grisey and
Murail both defined this idea respectively. In his article “Did You Say Spectral?” written
for the Contemporary Music Review, Grisey clarifies his thoughts clearly: “What is
radically different in spectral music is the attitude of the composer faced with the cluster
of forces that make up sounds and faced with the time needed for their emergence.”7
Further he adds, “It is not a closed technique but an attitude.”8 In the same way Murail
characterizes spectral music as being “neither about techniques nor styles but, at its core,
is simply a question of attitude.”9 The spectral attitude towards the phenomenon of
music was not, in general, to break down the sound into its constituent elements, such as
the music that was being composed by certain composers from the post–war modernist
school reflecting an interest in motivic development. This approach constituted “a
universe of continuity and complex interrelations.”10 With the continuous phenomenon,
this approach tries to “understand sound in all its complexity…[and] to create a method
of communicating clearly with sonic material.”11
7
Gérard Grisey, “Did You Say Spectral?” trans. Joshua Fineberg, Contemporary Music Review 19:3
(2000): 1.
8
Ibid., 3.
9
Joshua Fineberg, “Spectral Music,” Contemporary Music Review 19:2 (2000): 3.
10
Murail, “Target Practice,” 152.
11
Ibid., 150.
7
Aside from L’Itinéraire, another group central to the spectral movement during this
time was the Feedback Studio12 in Germany. Founded in Cologne in 1970, the group was
initially associated with the pupils and assistants of Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928–2007),
including Clarence Barlow (b. 1945), Péter Eötvös (b. 1944), Johannes Fritsch (1941-
–2010), Mesías Maiguashca (b. 1938), and Claude Vivier (1948–83). Stockhausen plays
a remarkable position for the Feedback Studio. “The influence of Stockhausen is
certainly a factor in their music, and particular varieties of spectral composition found in
their music were perhaps triggered by Mantra and Stimmung.”13 Mantra is an inspiration
for Johannes Fritsch and Calude Vivier.14 Similar to some composers associated with the
French Spectral School, the music of several Feedback composers also contains more
melodic writing: Maiguashca’s work Monodias e Interludios (1984), Eötvös’ ensemble
piece Sequences of the Wind (1976), and Fritsch’s composition String Quintet are (1984)
among them. “Fritsch made a typically Feedback attempt to fuse melodic and spectral
notions in several works.”15 This attitude is completely different from the work of the
composers from the group L’Itinéraire in the 1970s. Melodic or polyphonic music is
atypical to their spectral compositions during this period. “The emphasis on melody in
12
Together with Rolf Gelhaar (b.1943) and David Johnson (b. 1940), Johannes Fritsch founded the
Feedback Studio in 1970.
13
Anderson, “A Provisional History of Spectral Music,” 15.
14
Ibid., 13.
15
Ibid., 17.
8
the Feedback group may, of course, be another product of the heritage of Stockhausen.”16
This approach to incorporating more traditionally conceived melodic writing certainly is
crucial in the music of the Canadian composer Claude Vivier17, a somewhat special case
in the Feedback group. Having encountered the music of Bali and Japan in 1976, Vivier’s
subsequent compositions show the impact and influence of East Asia music on his own
compositional choice, with a diatonic and direct melodic style being the most prominent
feature of his music. His output from 1980 onwards involves the human voice such as his
best-known work, Lonely Child for soprano and orchestra (1980). Vivier’s music is
considerably unique, which “emanates an extraordinarily distinct atmosphere quite unlike
any other composer.”18
Spectral composers reinvented their ways of thinking music and tried to propose a
new form of musical composition opposed to other theoretical conceits of the time, most
specifically the serial processes that evolved from the earlier twelve-tone system.
Spectralists showed little interest in abstract theoretical musical applications on paper, or
in the predominately conventional analytic methods which only examine pitch; instead,
they were interested in the analysis of sonic production, investigated natural laws of
16
Ibid.
17
Ibid.
18
Ibid.
9
sounds, and dealt with the fields of acoustics and psycho–acoustics. This change, with
special attention to a sound’s quality, was related to a strong emphasis on timbre. The
composers belonging to the spectral movement were concerned with the structure of
timbre and placed it above pitch as the main element in their compositions. They were
particularly interested in so-called complex sounds, such as “harmonic spectra, harmonic
or non-harmonic FM spectra, bell sounds, and multiphonics, all of which elide the
distinction between harmony and timbre.”19 Examples of these complex sounds can be
found in Grisey’s Partiels (1975) and Murail’s Désintégrations (1983). The effect of this
fusion between harmony and timbre is the primary trait of the “spectral” language. The
result was the introduction of a sound world that contained fresh, unprecedented features
that were previously unheard and not considered important.
Spectral music is largely based on the discovery of the structure of a sound—its
spectrum. Grisey, for instance, often writes music based on the analysis of the
fundamental nature of sound, in particular, the harmonic spectra. Much of the material in
a spectral composition is typically derived from the frequencies of spectra and their
behavior. Spectral composers, like Grisey, may also use analysis of sounds as models for
musical structure. The sound that is analyzed for any particular work influences how the
19
Ibid., 8.
10
music is generated at harmonic, formal, and other levels. The materials the composer
works with and the choices the composer work from come from a very different place. A
sound’s spectrum is typically in a state of continuous change. To apply this concept to
music, harmony and timbre would also be in constant motion. As Viviana Moscovich
indicates, “the spectrum—or a group of spectra—replaces harmony, melody, rhythm,
orchestration and form. The spectrum is always in motion, and the composition is based
on spectra developing through time.”20
Doing research in technology and musical research that reaches into the domain of
sound production, spectral composers incorporate specific aspects of science into their
musical language, creating a link between art and technology. Murail has said that:
“…there had been a historic conjunction between an aesthetic movement, the spectral
movement, and the techniques researched, and software developed at IRCAM (Institut de
Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique).”21 As a result, “spectral music is allied
to electronic music: together they have achieved a re-birth of perception.”22 However,
we must understand that for some composers, like Grisey, electronic music had limited
importance in a direct manner, and the influences were important in a more indirect way.
20
Viviana Moscovich, “French Spectral Music: An Introduction,” Tempo 200 (1997): 22.
21
Smith, 13.
22
Jonathan Harvey, “Spectralism,” Contemporary Music Review, 19:3 (2001): 11.
11
Because of their curiosity about sound and the aspiration of bringing something new
to the field of timbre, the original spectral composers began the development of
instrumental research: some of this research is on a technical level and included
numerous experiments with electronic equipment. The electro-acoustic technology of the
day had a great impact on musical thought, form, and the use of instruments. This was
especially important for composers Jean-Claude Risset (b. 1938) and Murail. Murail’s
ensemble piece titled Mémoire / Erosion (1975–76) for horn and nine instruments adopts
an analog studio technique of electronic music known as a feedback system, or
“re-injection loop”. There are no electronics in the piece, but the instruments imitate the
electronic procedure. In an electronic feedback system, a microphone catches a live
sound which is recorded on a tape recording machine and carried to a second machine;
the second machine, connected to a speaker, plays back the sound after a certain time lag,
then sends the sound back to the first recorder to be blended with new sounds. This
ordering of sonic events theoretically creates a circular path. In this process, the initial
sound will be re-recorded and re-mixed indefinitely with new sounds, progressively
become transformed and distorted, and eventually turn into noise-like sounds. In
Mémoire / Erosion this process of a long term erosion of the sound is adopted at an
instrumental level: for instance, everything the solo French horn plays is repeated by the
12
ensemble. The initial sound made by the solo horn will never be exactly copied. The
ensemble—five strings and four woodwinds—plays the role of the two machines and
epitomizes the “re-injection loop” procedure described above. Realizing a musical work
in this way shows Murail’s keen observations of sonic phenomena and his compositional
strategies. “This is a major undertaking since this kind of attitude pushes the composer to
go beyond traditional musical gestures and instrument specific clichés. The result of this
detour is that the instrumental writing is considerably enriched, whether in the
distinctiveness of timbre…or in the complex articulations of the instrumental texture.”23
Moreover, the work uses the “circular” approach to feeding the sounds that are being
made back into the actual music as it sounds, thereby generating a piece that exhibits
features of complex canonic/polyphonic music.
Making use of concepts and tools borrowed from acoustics, spectralists had a
particular emphasis on the acoustical dimensions of sound, especially when
compositional decisions about harmonic and timbral structures are informed by
frequencial structures through a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT).
The Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) is “at the heart of all spectral analyses on
23
Claude Ledoux, “From the Philosophical to the Practical: An Imaginary Proposition Concerning the
Music of Tristan Murail,” tran. Joshua Fineberg, Contemporary Music Review 19:3 (2000): 59.
13
computers”24 and is a more prevalent technique used by spectral composers. FFT is a
method showing that all periodic sounds could be decomposed to infinite series of
sinusoidal waves, each with its own frequency. Thus, a complex sound could be broken
down into several discrete parts, which are represented by several sine waves.
Consequently, all sounds could theoretically be reconstructed using only sinusoidal
waves. With the use of FFT analysis a sound spectrum, or the timbral structure of a sound,
can be visualized using graphic representations. Such an approach allows spectralists to
develop a compositional technique based on the analysis of sounds. The appearance of
new tools for analyzing sounds allowed the composer to “bring a different perspective to
sounds, to journey to the interior of sounds, to observe their internal structures,” and “to
develop a compositional technique based on the analysis of sounds.”25 Fourier analysis
data is for instance the basis for Murail’s Désintégrations.
The role of IRCAM, an institute for contemporary music, cannot be understated.
Many techniques and tools including software and hardware for electronic music were
being developed at IRCAM, such as OpenMusic, AudioSculpt, and the widely used
program Max/MSP26. Analyses based on Fast Fourier Transform were made widely
24
Joshua Fineberg, “Guide to the Basic Concepts and Techniques of Spectral Music,” Contemporary
Music Review 19:2 (2000): 100.
25
Tristan Murail, “The Revolution of Complex Sounds,” Contemporary Music Review, 24:2 (2005): 122.
26
An early version of Max/MSP was developed at IRCAM, but Max is no longer owned by IRCAM. Max
14
available for composers there. Murail “came across the Fourier analyses of several
instruments that David Wessel created at IRCAM.”27 In addition, spectral composers
such as Murail and Kaija Saariaho (b.1952) have received financial and educational
supports from IRCAM; the former also taught composition at IRCAM.28 Moreover,
numerous composers wrote remarkable compositions while at IRCAM: Jonathan
Harvey’s Mortuos Plango Vivos Voco (1980); Grisey’s Les Chants de l’Amour (1984);
Michäel Lévinas’s Rebonds (1993); and Magnus Lindberg’s Related Rocks (1997).
IRCAM offered scholarships to these composers above and a period of residency at this
institute.
While spectral composers often make decisions by the analysis of sound spectra,
“sound spectra themselves are far less compositionally deterministic than the acoustic
continuity which links them, their relative consonance or dissonance.”29 The sound itself
and our perception of it are much more important. According to Grisey, the departure
point for the compositional method of what is known as the spectral music movement
was a predilection for continuity and for extended time.30 At the early stages of
has splintered into (at least) three streams: Max, PureData, and jMax.
27
Ronald Bruce Smith, “An Interview with Tristan Murail,” Computer Music Journal 24:1 (2000): 12.
28
Most of the composers connected to the so-called “spectral music” movement taught at IRCAM at some
point.
29
Julian Anderson, “In Harmony: Julian Anderson Introduces the Music and Ideas of Tristan Murail,” The
Musical Times, 134:1804 (1993): 321.
30
Grisey, “ Gérard Grisey,” Interview by David Bundler in 1996. URL:
15
spectralism, composers looked to create a continuous and infinite sonic space, where
“time is organized by flux and not by segment.”31 Murail has written that electronic
music enables us to “discover a different sense of time; they have led us to alternative
methods of orienting ourselves to duration.”32 Moreover, “electricity provided for the
first time sounds of infinite duration, stable masses of sound, continuums.”33 To go a
step further, composers like Murail tried to create electronic continuums within the
orchestra. They began to see the orchestra as a whole, rather than a number of individual
instruments or lines. Murail has applied the idea to an orchestral work he wrote in 1974,
Sables. The music of Sables abounds in extreme continuity with no silence.
The notion of process, the sonic entity that is being generated in time, is apparent in
the music of spectral composers. For Grisey, as for Dufour, the “musical piece is built
from within, by sound-entities that are formed, transformed and transmuted.”34 For
Murail, there is an internal cohesion linking the material and the form. In practice, the
concept of process, or continuous transformation, is a musical situation of changing from
one point to another. “It can appear in a harmonic construct as progressive distortions; in
a rhythmic construct as accelerations or decelerations or as any other agogic
http://www.angelfire.com/music2/davidbundler/grisey.html.
31
Tristan Murail, “Spectra and Sprites,” Contemporary Music Review, 24:2 (2005): 139.
32
Murail, “The Revolution of Complex Sounds,” 122.
33
Ibid., 123.
34
Moscovich, 27.
16
combination.”35 The idea of transforming objects progressively, which also greatly
affects the formal construction, is one of the most characteristic manifestations of the
spectral movement. On a formal level, Grisey and Murail think about music completely
different from serial composers. For Grisey, “the piece’s form is determined by the
evolution of the sounds. The music is the sounds;”36 however, Murail believes the whole
process is identical to the form “where all is connected and interdependent.”37 The idea
of process takes the place of the older concept of sectional form. “The old oppositions of
container and content, of form and material will lose all meaning, since compositional
process will have become an art of synthesis, born of a continuous movement from
differentiation to integration.”38 This is a not a novel aspect, since the minimalists were
actually doing it long before, but it is indeed a noticeable perspective for Murail in terms
of the structure. Take, for example, Murail’s Gondwana (1980) for large orchestra. The
formal aspect of Gondwana is nonlinear process.39 The piece makes a slow evolution on
all parameters. In the opening section, Murail starts a process of transformation: the first
chord will be repeated twelve times, each time with gradual change.
Murail also considers timbre as a very powerful way of structuring the form.
35
Ledoux, 47.
36
Moscovich, 25.
37
Murail, “Spectra and Sprites,” 143.
38
39
Ronald Bruce Smith, “An Interview with Tristan Murail,” 16.
17
Moreover, he believes timbre and harmony have become one and the same thing, so
harmony is in a position to support the form as well. “An ideal compositional method in
which structures of sounds would correspond to music forms,” writes Murail.40 Murail
reckons that timbre and harmony are nearly the same concepts: “there is theoretically no
difference between the two concepts; it is all a question of perception.”41 As Daniel
Pressnitzer and Stephen McAdams note, there is no distinction between “the spectrum of
a note associated with a timbre and the spectrum of a chord considered as an element of
harmony; [...] a chord is a collection of partials, thus a timbre.”42 Put another way,
Murail, Pressnitzer, and McAdams all consider the spectrum of a note and the spectrum
of a harmony more or less the same. Murail explains that “one can progressively separate
timbres to create the effect of a harmony and, conversely, progressively fuse harmonic
relations until they create a timbral effect…Therefore there is a harmony-timbre
continuum.”43 This proves that timbre and harmony become fused in spectral music—the
composer is able to use unfamiliar instrumental sounds to blur the distinction between
timbre and harmony.
The characteristics of certain spectral compositions are based on slow harmonic

40
41
Murail, “Spectra and Sprites,” 138.
42
Daniel Pressnitzer and Stephen McAdams, “Acoustics, Psychoacoustics and Spectral Music,”
Contemporary Music Review 19:2 (2000): 39.
43
18
development and avoiding a strong sense of pulse. Grisey defines spectral music as
“characterized by the hypnotic power of slowness and by a virtual obsession with
continuity, thresholds, transience and dynamic forms.”44 Composers with this spectral
attitude often have an interest in sounds of long duration and slow rates of change. Often
a single sound can be last an entire section. This type of music with slow harmonic
motion de-emphasizes pitch content, so the listener is forced to examine the sonority and
becomes aware of timbre and harmony.
Technological Influences
At this point, I would like to introduce some of the terminology and techniques of
electronic music that have had a significant influence on spectral music. This is a vast
subject, but this section will be devoted only to the technical issues that had a direct
impact on Grisey’s music in general and his Vortex Temporum: harmonic spectra,
non-harmonic spectra, distortions of harmonic spectra and modulations.
Harmonic spectra
The sounds of pitched notes consist of a fundamental frequency and partials
(overtones). The fundamental, or the first harmonic, is normally perceived as the pitch.
44
Grisey, “Did You Say Spectral?” 2.
19
The relative amplitudes of each partial, which is never stable but changes constantly,
determine the sound’s timbre. The combination of several harmonics is known as the
harmonic spectra. The simplest harmonic spectrum is a sine wave and only contains the
fundamental. The harmonic spectra may differ depending on pitch, volume, instrument,
and so on. In general, when a sound contains many partials of the fundamental, the ear
can perceive the fundamental pitch even if it is not present in the harmonic series.
Roughly speaking, orchestral instruments such as wind and strings produce harmonic
spectra, where the frequency of each partial is an integer multiple of the fundamental
frequency.
Non-harmonic spectra
Non-pitched, or indefinite pitched instruments have characteristic spectra that
contain inharmonic partials. In contrast to harmonic spectra described above, the
relationships between partials of non-harmonic spectra are not in integer ratios.
Inharmonic spectra are richer than harmonic spectra and can be classified under the
category of complex sounds. There is an enormous number of possible non-harmonic
spectra found in physical instruments that are often traditionally grouped into three
20
classes of spectra.45 The first type of non-harmonic spectrum is colored noise, such as
guiro, maracas, and breathy flute sound. The second category is instrumental
multiphonics or bells. The third group is spectral stretching or compression.
Multiphonics
The term multiphonics is usually used when referring to sounds produced by a
monophonic instrument-generally a woodwind or brass instrument in which more than
one pitch can be heard at the same time. A bell’s spectrum is typically inharmonic. While
a bell contains a couple of harmonic partials, the bell has great amount of upper
inharmonic partials.
Distortions of harmonic spectra
Many instrumental spectra are somewhat stretched or compressed naturally. For
instance, the piano spectrum stretches the highest frequencies. Based on the equation for
harmonic spectra, the distortion effect can be modeled as the following equation where x
is an exponent greater than zero:
X
frequency = fundamental × ( rank )
Different exponent value stands for different distortion effect. If the amount of
€
45
Fineberg, “Guide to the Basic Concepts and Techniques of Spectral Music,” 91.
21
harmonic distortion is less than one, the spectrum is compressed; greater than one, it is
stretched. If it is equal to one, the spectrum is harmonic and these new partials will
slightly change the timbre of the original spectrum. Usually these values will be close to
one, but sometime for musical purpose such as the need for timbral and harmonic facets,
the amount of harmonic distortion may be changed.
Frequency shifted spectra
Another type of spectral distortion is frequency shifting. All frequencies are shifted
up or down by a fixed value (in Hz). The equation is as follows:
frequency = fundamental × rank + ( fixed value)
In high-frequency partials the effect is insignificant, that is, the percentage of

€
distortion is less because the shifted value has less effect on them.
Modulations
In electronic communication, modulation is the time-varying process of interacting
one periodic signal (usually referred to as the carrier) with a second independent signal
(the modulator, which can modify a natural sound) in order to transmit information.
Modulation is relevant to musicians since the timbres it produces give the composer
22
varied ways to discover orchestral sounds. Three basic types of modulation have been
used in spectral compositions: amplitude modulation (AM), frequency modulation (FM),
and ring modulation (RM).
Amplitude modulation
Used commonly for AM radio, amplitude modulation is one of the oldest studio
techniques, which varies the amplitude of the transmitted signal while the frequency is
varied in frequency modulation. Examples of amplitude modulation can also be found in
music: vibrato is in a sense a pitch modulated so as to produce the amplitude modulation.
If the frequency of the modulator is less than 20 Hz (low-frequency oscillators), we will
perceive a tremolo effect. Tremolo creates a slow variation in the amplitude domain. Put
another way, Vibrato is modulated pitch (within a certain range), where tremolo is
modulated amplitude (again, within a certain, and probably not coincidentally similar,
range).
Ring Modulation
Ring modulation is a special form of amplitude modulation. Two equal sounds,
usually an instrumental source and an electronic sound, enter a ring modulator and are
being modulated by each other. This process is often used to generate pitch material and
23
the resultant sound is the addition and subtraction of the two frequencies. By this it means
that the frequency of each note of the first spectrum can be added to and subtracted from
the frequency of each note of the second spectrum. When this occurs, the frequency of
each note of the first spectrum is not present. For instance, if the first spectrum is 220 Hz
and the second one is 140 Hz, we will get the sum at 360 Hz (220+140) and the
difference at 80 Hz (220-140).
Ring modulation is also capable of modifying complex sounds. A sine wave
generator would modulate a complex spectrum picked up by a microphone. This is used
in Stockhausen’s works of the 1960s and 1970s including Mixtur (1964) and Mantra
(1970). Mixtur, for orchestra, 4 sine-wave generators, and 4 ring modulators, is one of the
first compositions for orchestra and live electronics. The sounds of the orchestra except
the percussion are captured by 4 groups of microphones and ring modulated with
sinusoidal sounds. The resulting sound is played by loudspeakers and mixed with the live
orchestral playing simultaneously. The ring modulator plays a role to color orchestral
sounds in Mixtur and again to color the piano timbre in Mantra. Grisey also applies the
idea of ring modulation to his influential works such as Partiels and Modulations
(1976–77). However, Grisey’s way of utilizing this type of technique is different from
Stockhausen’s. For Stockhausen, the ring modulation technique takes place in the domain
24
of mixed music; as for Grisey, there are no ring modulators or any electronic equipment
either in Partiels or Modulations. It is not Grisey’s purpose to use actual electronic ring
modulation to create harmonies. According to Murail, in Partiels, Grisey “calculates the
virtual ring modulations of two instrumental lines played by flutes or clarinets, and
creates secondary lines from the results, which are orchestrated in the strings—these lines
form a strange sort of counterpoint with the principal lines.”46
Frequency modulation
Unlike amplitude modulation or ring modulation, frequency modulation is a more
recent technique, in which the frequency of the carrier is varied while its amplitude
remains the constant. John Chowning developed the technique of auditory rate47 FM in
1973. It is this far the most used modulation in the music of spectral composers. This
technique can produce complex spectra with very simple but powerful means. It can
provide rich sounding timbres in spectral synthesis with only two oscillators, whereas
additive techniques, for example, might require dozens or more.48 The technique of
additive synthesis produces complex sounds by adding a large amount of sine waves
together with different amplitudes. Spectral composers utilize the FM technique and
46
Tristan Murail, “Villeneuve-le` s-Avignon Conferences, Centre Acanthes, 9–11 and 13 July 1992,” tran.
Aaron Berkowitz and Joshua Fineberg. Contemporary Music Review 24: 2 (2005): 222.
47
A periodic sound modulates with a frequency faster than 20 Hz, which we can perceive.
48
25
apply it to instrumental synthesis, especially for the creation of “orchestrally synthesized
timbres”49 as with Murail’s Désintégrations. Besides, FM can also generate a large
number of side bands, which are partials created symmetrically above and below the
carrier. The modulation index, or depth, controls the number of sidebands. As the
modulation index increases, the sidebands expand as well.
The spectrum produced with this technique is indicated with the following formula:
C, C+M, C+(M*2), C+(M*3), etc, and C-M, C-(M*2), C-(M*3) and so on. Figure 1.1
shows a carrier of 220 Hz modulated by a modulator of 60 Hz.
Fig. 1.1. 220 Hz FM Modulation.
Historical Influence
Historically, before the emergence of the spectral movement, the emphasis on
timbre had already begun earlier in the twentieth-century. Edgard Varèse’s Integrales
(1925) and György Ligeti’s Lontano (1967) are examples where both composers think of
49
Ibid.
26
timbre as a significant compositional element. For Varèse, “sound is an essential
structural element in music.”50 He did not concern himself about motivic development in
most of his works. In Varèse’s Integrales, the opening passage is repeated several times
by different instruments whereas all of the instruments play the same note in the opening
of Ligeti’s large orchestral piece, Lontano. This creates an extraordinary sonority.
Because of quiet entrances of each instrument, Lontano is an endless world that consists
of seamless musical lines. One should note here that this section discusses only Ligeti’s
timbral procedure in Lontano as Ligeti writes distinct type of music and his
compositional style changes in different periods. Varèse and Ligeti’s ideas about timbre
greatly influenced spectral music and the conception of timbral evolution is important for
spectralists. Besides Varèse and Ligeti, Giacinto Scelsi (1905–88) mainly focused on
timbral evolution and created complex sonority in his compositions. These composers
mentioned above gave rise to the prominence of timbre and had a profound impact on the
spectral composers directly. In addition to the aspect of timbre, the use of overtones and
the idea of process, which are two of the essential characteristics of spectral music, can
be seen as early as in the work of composers Messiaen and Ligeti, respectively. As a
result, Varese, Messiaen, Ligeti, and Scelsi are considered precursors of the spectral
50
Moscovich, 22.
27
movement. The following sections will concentrate on the works of Scelsi and Ligeti.
Proto-spectralist: Scelsi
Rethinking musical listening itself and concerned with musical perception, Italian
composer Giacinto Scelsi changed our relation to sound. Scelsi had an obsession with
timbre and gradual evolution of a sonic event so that many of his works center around a
single pitch or a single sound. Having met Scelsi in Rome at the Villa Medici in 1972-73,
composers Grisey, Murail and Michaël Levinas had a really close connection with him;51
Scelsi affected them greatly. They incorporated in their compositions some instrumental
techniques that Scelsi used: “These include the well-known multiphonics on wind
instruments, or certain subtle alterations of the sound on string instruments, techniques
that are found in Scelsi’s music, but even more in spectral composition.”52 Besides,
much of Scelsi’s music has been premiered and performed by the Ensemble L’Itinéraire,
the ensemble founded by Grisey, Murail and Levinas.
Though Scelsi’s compositional techniques differ from that of spectral composers,
they share a certain number of basic ideas: in particular “the exploration of the interior of
51
Tristan Murail, “Scelsi and L’Itinéraire: The Exploration of Sound,” tran. Robert Hasegawa.
Contemporary Music Review 24:2, (2005): 181.
52
Ibid., 182.
28
sounds.”53 The primary parameter in Scelsi’s music is what he called “the depth of
sound,” which is the “extensive use of all of the internal parameters of sound: the
spectrum, the dynamics…or even the timbral changes that one can create on the same
note (e.g. by playing it on different strings of a string instrument).”54 It is about
searching for timbre in the broad sense. Scelsi’s best-known work, the Quattro Pezzi per
Orchestra (su una nota sola) (1959) for a chamber orchestra of twenty-six players, is an
illustration of this. Made up of four pieces, each piece sticks to only one note, the
succession being: F, B, Ab, A. As is normal in Scelsi’s other works, the abandonment of
the harmonic parameter obliged the listener to concentrate on minutiae of sound such as
glissandi and tremolos. Everything comes from within each individual sound. As a result,
the sonic material and the form are truly one and the same phenomenon.55 This is a very
new and crucial attitude towards the phenomenon of sound—it is an attitude contrary to
“both tonal and serial music, which are both based on the combination of pre-existing
elements.”56
One of the hallmarks of Scelsi’s music is the use of time. Certain spectral
compositions are based on the idea of the gradual transformation of a sound. Scelsi’s
53
Ibid., 183.
54
Tristan Murail, “Villeneuve-le`s-Avignon Conferences, Centre Acanthes, 9–11 and 13 July 1992,” 197.
55
Murail, “Scelsi and L’Itinéraire: The Exploration of Sound,” 183.
56
Ibid.
29
concept of time, or “smooth time”, in Murail’s words, links him to spectral composers as
well. Murail defines smooth time as follows:
Smooth time does not necessarily mean stasis or the absence of movement
or change, but rather that there are no sharp breaks, and that the form is
not sectional. Smooth time is based instead on a continuous form, on
continuous processes, and on movements coming from within the sound
itself.57
The transformation unfolds slowly in the manner of Scelsi’s timbral evolution. “The
global formal shape often seems static, while the details are very mobile.”58 For example,
another of Scelsi’s greatest pieces, the Fourth String Quartet (1964), shows his
preoccupation with gradual, continuously evolving processes. For him, “conventional
formal divisions are completely elided in favor of a single, unidirectional process.”59
All Scelsi’s influences mentioned above such as the exploration of the sonic object
and the temporal perspective lead to special instrumental playing techniques, which
variates timbre. In Scelsi’s compositions, articulations, dynamic effects, and timbral
instructions are notated very precisely showing players how to perform them. He often
uses scordatura to create subtle timbral changes. The same violin note, played on a
different string, has a different timbre. Scelsi also specifies diverse types of vibratos and
57
Ibid., 184
58
Tristan Murail, “Scelsi, De-composer,” tran. Robert Hasegawa. Contemporary Music Review 24:2,
(2005): 179.
59
Julian Anderson, “A Provisional History of Spectral Music,” 12.
30
tremolos of varying speeds. All of this requires very fine control of playing techniques,
and is found in Scelsi’s music as well as in spectral works. This new style of playing
revealing different moments within the evolution of a sonic entity was necessary in
spectral music to “build a global sound from many individual sounds.”60
Proto-spectralist: Ligeti
Aside from the influence of Scelsi, Hungarian and Romanian composer György
Ligeti (1923–2006) also plays a crucial role in the spectral current. During a period of his
life, Ligeti wrote texture music, where clusters are used to achieve slow rates of change.
Ligeti’s noteworthy Etudes for piano showcases the composer’s textural writing and how
he manipulates harmonies. His music has a similar approach as Scelsi’s, both of which
possess continuously evolving textures. For a period of time Ligeti thought of sound
masses and the concept of process in which individual notes are less important. For him,
the structure of the mass of sounds was the primary aspect. This was a complete change
of viewpoint in the course of the sixties when the music world was dominated by serial
music. Ligeti’s works of the sixties exemplify his interest in cluster chords and timbre,
particularly in his breakthrough orchestral pieces Atmosphères (1961) and Lontano.
Ligeti referred to this technique Micropolyphony. Micropolyphony is a technique that

60
31
involves thick textures, emphasizes sustained sounds, and removes the traditional music
elements such as melody and rhythm as distinct features. The individual lines of a
micropolyphonic work are not static lines, but are at the same time not active enough to
be heard clearly, and therefore listeners perceive a sound mass and a mixture of timbre. It
is a way of sustaining sounds and creating timbres. Ligeti’s attitude towards orchestral
sounds brings “a re-evaluation of the traditional orchestra.”61
Spectralists
Grisey’s Partiels and Murail’s Gondwana are the first characteristic works
associated with “spectral music”. Grisey’s Partiels, using eighteen instruments to
synthesize the spectrum, is considered a typical piece from this period and is cited as
sparking initial interest in the spectral practice for a future generation of composers.
However, Julian Anderson views Danish composer Per Norgaard’s Voyage into the
Golden Screen (1968) for chamber orchestra as the “first properly instrumental piece of
spectral composition”62 since this entire piece is based on two harmonic spectra, utilizes
noise, and gives a great weight to the timbre parameter.
Lastly, composer Jonathan Harvey (b. 1939) should not be ignored among the
61
Murail, “Scelsi, De-composer,” 175.
62
32
spectralist composers. He is one of the major composers of electronic music. Some
people consider Harvey to be a part of the spectral movement since he has used spectral
techniques in considerable pieces and “has been an interested observer since its very
beginnings.”63
Spectralist: Murail
French composer Murail, one of the progenitors of the spectral movement, was a
student of Messiaen at the Conservatoire de Paris. After having taught in France, he was
awarded the Prix de Rome in 1971, and spent two years in Italy. Returning to Paris in
1973, he co-founded the ensemble L'Itinéraire with a group of composers of his
generation. He established a highly regarded reputation as a professor of composition,
teaching computer music and composition at the Conservatoire de Paris and at IRCAM
from 1991 to 1997, giving the summer courses at Darmstadt, the Abbaye de Royaumont,
and the Centre Acanthes, as well as holding a faculty position at Columbia University
from 1997 to 2011.
In addition to Messiaen, composers like Ligeti and Iannis Xenakis (1922–2001) and
the music of other nonwestern cultures have all been influences on Murail’s music.64 He
63
Fineberg, “Spectral Music,” 3.
64
Tristan Murail, “Tristan Murail’s Official Website,” URL: http://www.tristanmurail.com/en/index.html.
33
read reflections on Eastern (Sino-Japanese to be precise) thought65 and also traveled to
several far-away countries to study unusual instruments. One can hear the connection
with Scelsi’s music in Murail’s Sables (1974–75) for orchestra: one sound unfolds in
continuous motion and lasts throughout the entire piece. As for Xenakis, his way of
seeing music as architecture of time, and the orchestra as a mass that one could sculpt, led
Murail to compose very differently from what he had been doing.66 Like Ligeti did
during the 1960s, Xenakis thinks about music in terms of sound masses. Two of Xenakis’
large orchestra pieces, Metastasis and Pithoprakta, impressed Murail greatly. One of his
early pieces, Altitude 8000 (1970) for orchestra, shows Murail’s new approach,
displaying the influence of Xenakis with regards to his conception of time “different from
the fragmented time common in serial music.”67 Murail tries to investigate a different
temporal approach at that time and the work just mentioned above is based on “a
non-event-oriented time.68”
Starting in 1980 Murail began a long-term collaboration with IRCAM and became
involved with electronic music. He assisted in developing the PatchWork composition
software that is used as a compositional aid. PatchWork is a graphical programming
65
66
67
Ibid.
68
Ibid.
34
language, which provides the composer tools for visual musical programming. This
software has been used in the formalization of musical structure and is perhaps the most
widely used of the IRCAM software.69 The study of psychoacoustics and the use of the
computer-assisted composition programs further Murail’s investigation into the inner
structure of sound, or the acoustical phenomenon as well as the composition process.
Murail explained his compositional transformation in the following way: “I tried to
simulate electronic processes, which later led to the more general idea of using audible
formal processes to write music, replacing the older ideas of development and sectional
form.”70 Allégories, for 6 instruments and electronic sounds, is an example of Murail’s
music from the IRCAM years. The harmonic structure of the piece is more complicated
than many of Murail’s earlier works. The composition process has affected the form of
the piece: “sections of materials recur throughout the piece creating an ambiguous pattern
of time-loops.”71 Désintégrations (1983) for 17 instruments and computer generated
4-channel tape is Murail’s first experience with superimposed instrumental and
synthesized sounds. The purpose of the piece is to have a perfect blend of electronic and
acoustic sounds, and Murail treats electronics and instruments in the same way. He
69
Smith, “An Interview with Tristan Murail,” 16.
70
71
Murail, “Tristan Murail’s Official Website,” URL:
http://www.tristanmurail.com/en/oeuvre-fiche.php?cotage=28228.
35
deconstructs acoustic sound and reconstructs electronic ones with the same emphasis,
creating unified environments between the two sources of sound. In Désintégrations,
which is made up of eleven connected sections, instruments and electronics are
complementary: the tape often amplifies the orchestra. Each section employs one type of
spectral treatment and evolves from inharmonic to harmonic, or vice versa.
The early spectral music is devoid of an emphatic melody. Murail’s Gondwana,
already described briefly in the preceding paragraphs, serves as a fine example of this.
Murail speaks of his concerns about this issue in his article “After-thoughts.” He admitted
to feeling hesitant to re-introduce melodic elements to his work because he was afraid of
“returning to past melodic clichés, falling back into formulas of theme.”72 As time went
on, however, Murail’s interest in meta-processes changed this point of view. For instance,
the textural writing in L'Esprit des Dunes (1994) for eleven instruments and
computer-generated sounds, displays the development of melodic contours, which is
taken from Mongolian overtone singing and Tibetan traditional music. This kind of linear
writing is generally thought of as atypical of “spectral” practice though.
Compared with his early works, Murail’s recent works from the nineties shows the
tendency toward more complex forms. “In the early pieces, the processes and the
72
Tristan Murail, “After-thoughts,” Contemporary Music Review 24:2 (2005): 271.
36
frequencies employed in composition were identical to the form, whereas the recent
pieces employ a second layer that uses processes and calculations that are not identical to
the processes and calculations being used on the primary layer. This allows for a form
that is more versatile with more references to already-heard objects and their
transformation.”73 Murail calls this a process of processes, which is one of the important
aspects of his music. “Within this idea is the cohabitation of multiple processes in a
hierarchical relationship. […], a direct result of this type of thinking is that Murail’s form
of expression is more and more direct, dense, concise and, thanks to the inter-relations
between different, more or less complex, musical processes, forces anyone wanting to
understand the work, to approach musical material from a more heuristic angle.”74
An important method that Murail employs in his works since 1980 has been the use
of frequency modulation. To produce inharmonic or complex sounds such as bell sounds
in instrumental music, he introduced FM-synthesis procedures as a basis for instrumental
harmonies. Murail’s large orchestral work Gondwana (see Example 1.1)75 is a typical
illustration to explain this point. In Gondwana, Murail takes the sound of a bell as a
model, and attempts to make bell sonorities heard via the orchestra, but “not looking to
73
Smith, “An interview with Tristan Murail,” 17.
74
Claude Ledoux, “From the Philosophical to the Practical: An Imaginary Proposition Concerning the
Music of Tristan Murail,” 63.
75
Score publisher: EMT.
37
create a pure imitation of a sonic object,”76 The piece is composed only with FM
procedures and the first chord demonstrates the composer’s exquisite and superior
orchestration technique. For instance, Murail takes into account the sonority of bells,
where certain frequencies resonate longer than others. When the rich timbre of trumpets
in the higher partials fade out, he replaces them with clarinets. Moreover, he uses piano
and certain pitched percussion instruments including vibraphone, crotales, and tubular
bells to evoke the attack of the bell sound. In this piece timbre is brought to the
foreground of the organizational dimension.77
Ex. 1.1. Gondwana, opening measures 1-8.

76
Murail, “Villeneuve-le` s-Avignon Conferences, Centre Acanthes, 9–11 and 13 July 1992,” 205.
77
François Rose, “Introduction to the Pitch Organization of French Spectral Music,” Perspectives of New
Music, 34:2 (1996): 32.
38
Post-spectralist: Saariaho
There has been apparent follow-up to the activities of spectralism on an international
scale which involves notable composers Marc-Andre Dalbavie, Philippe Hurel, Philippe
Leroux, and Fabien Lévy in France; Magnus Lindberg and Kaija Saariaho in Finland; and
Julian Anderson and George Benjamin in the United Kingdom. As the spectral movement
moves forward, composers of the succeeding generation have created a trend which
differs from the first generation of spectral composers. They take the aesthetics of
spectral music as the base, and develop their own musical idiosyncrasy. Most importantly,
their compositional approaches take timbral concerns a step further: the idea of synthesis
and sonic manipulation techniques becomes essential in their music.78 Kaija Saariaho (b.
1952) is a spectral composer of the next generation and an example of a composer that
has developed her own musical language based on spectral influences. Though she never
studied with Grisey and Murail, Saariaho is viewed as one of the best-known
“spectrally-influenced composers of independent training and thought.”79
Kaija Saariaho is a leading figure of Finnish musicians following the death of
Sibelius. She has lived in Paris since 1982, studied at the Sibelius Academy with Paavo
78
Damien Pousset, “The works of Kaija Saariaho, Philippe Hurel and Marc-André Dalbavie—Stile
Concertato, Stile Concitato, Stile Rappresentativo,” tran. Joshua Fineberg and Ronan Hyacinthe.
79
39
Heininen (b. 1938), spent two years in Freiburg studying with Brian Ferneyhough (b.
1943) and attended computer music courses at IRCAM. Unlike some other composers of
her generation, Saariaho did not become acquainted with spectral music until a relatively
late stage; it was in 1980 that Saariaho first attended a performance in Darmstadt of the
works of Murail and Grisey,80 and their music made a great impression on her. She was
mainly influenced by Grisey’s Modulations and Murail’s Désintégrations.
The technologies available to the post-spectral composers differ from that of their
predecessors. In the 1970s, the electronics were very limited: composers at that time used
analog electronics such as ring modulators, harmonizers, and old style synthesizers. Such
machines, according to Murail, were very temperamental; it was also time consuming to
use the model of frequency modulations since composers had to make calculations by
hand.81 With the advent of personal computers, it became much easier and much more
efficient for post-spectralists to do mathematical operations. Computer technology has
played a decisive role in the development of Saariaho’s music. She often composes for a
combination of live electronic and traditional instruments. At IRCAM, studying advanced
sound-synthesis technologies became a stimulation for Saariaho, enabling her to work
80
Damien Pousset, “The works of Kaija Saariaho, Philippe Hurel and Marc-André Dalbavie—Stile
Concertato, Stile Concitato, Stile Rappresentativo,” tran. Joshua Fineberg and Ronan Hyacinthe.
81
Smith, “An Interview with Tristan Murail,” 12.
40
with timbre and perception further. She is also influenced by the psychoacoustic research
of Steve MacAdams, particularly his work on auditory streaming and perception.82 Vers
le blanc (1982) for solo tape, her first composition realized with a computer, was a
radical attempt to probe the limits of human perception. It entails a fifteen-minute glide
from one three-part chord to another, together with a process of timbral transformation.83
This movement is so extremely slow that the changes in pitch become imperceptible to
the ear. In this work, she attempted to create the illusion of an endless voice through the
use of various interpolation systems. The computer controls all the parameters, such as
the bandwidth and amplitudes of the formants. As the composer herself said, the
computer inspired this idea and it was only with computers that she could realize it.
Interpolation, the idea Saariaho employs in Vers le blanc, is simply an evolutionary
process of moving smoothly from one point to another where the beginning and terminal
points are set endpoints. Between the two endpoints, there are several different points to
generate intermediate states (fig. 1.2). The composer needs to decide how to get from one
point to the next. This compositional technique can be utilized in almost all musical
82
Julian Anderson, “Seductive Solitary: Julian Anderson Surveys the Works of Kaija Saariaho, a
Composer Pursuing a Lonely but Seductive Search for Music at once Directly Expressive and Genuinely
New,” The Musical Times, 133:1798 (1992): 616.
83
Julian Anderson, “Seductive Solitary: Julian Anderson Surveys the Works of Kaija Saariaho, a
Composer Pursuing a Lonely but Seductive Search for Music at once Directly Expressive and Genuinely
New,” The Musical Times, 133:1798 (1992): 616.
41
parameters, pitches and rhythms in particular, and makes a smooth transition possible.
One can, as a result, relate form and material together through the same technique; the
process of interpolation “is almost an archetype for form/material congruences.”84 Vers
le blanc is also an example of Saariaho’s concern for the form and the material. As was
stated, this work is about a gradual movement controlled by a single harmonic curve thus
“the form of the piece is simply the evolution of its material.”85
Fig. 1.2. Interpolation.
Saariaho shares a fondness of the effect of fusion of timbre and harmony with
spectral music, which is clearly evident in the case of Vers le blanc. In her works, the
84
Pousset, 77.
85
Anderson, “Seductive Solitary: Julian Anderson Surveys the Works of Kaija Saariaho, a Composer
Pursuing a Lonely but Seductive Search for Music at once Directly Expressive and Genuinely New,” 616.
42
timbres derived from pure instrumental playing to the noisiest correspond to the
traditional concepts of consonance and dissonance of the harmony. Saariaho introduced
Grisey’s notion of a “sound/noise axis”, which she used to create a logical timbral
organization. This concept allowed her to develop larger forms, create musical tension,
and control the timbre and the harmony.
In a general way, the concept of “noise” signifies to me utterances such as

breathing, the sound of a flute in a low register or a string instrument
playing “sul ponticello.” By contrast, a pure sound would be more akin to
the ringing of a bell or a human voice singing in the Western tradition.86
The sound/noise axis, inspired directly by the notion of consonance/dissonance in
tonal music, is a bi-polar conception: between the sine wave and white noise, between
consonance (clear texture) and dissonance (noisy texture). The following pattern shown
in Figure 1.3 illustrates a variety of sonic materials along this axis.
Fig. 1.3. Timbral axis.87
86
Kaija Saariaho, “Timbre and Harmony: Interpolations of Timbral Structures,” tran. S. Welbourn.
Contemporary Music Review (1987): 94.
87
This figure is borrowed from Anderson’s article, “Seductive Solitary,” page 617.
43
The notion of the sound/noise axis is very significant to Saariaho in her piece
Verblendungen (1984) for orchestra and tape, her first notable orchestral work composed
at IRCAM. The work begins at its highest point and declines progressively until the end.
The orchestra exhibits the harmonic material at the start; it then moves toward a dense,
noise texture. The harmonic progressions are obtained from a fundamental chord and its
inversions. Conversely, the tape opens with dense, noisy bands of sounds and ends with a
pure, consonant spectrum. Timbre and harmony are the principle facets in this piece. In
general, Saariaho attempts to relate the control of timbre with the control of harmony in
her works.88
At the formal organization level, Saariaho has tried some different approaches. Her
early works have seemingly “favored formal clarity, simple and audible”89 as in both
cases of Vers le blanc and Verblendungen. In contrast to her earlier music, Saariaho
attempts in her subsequent pieces to show a personal development of renewed interest in
form. She is inclined to evade formal directness and simple structures. In her music,
musical form is not pre-established formal structure. It is through an overall idea of form
that she approaches different musical parameters.90 Saariaho believes that everyone’s
88
Saariaho, “Timbre and Harmony: Interpolations of Timbral Structures,” 94.
89
Pousset,100.
90
Saariaho, “Timbre and Harmony: Interpolations of Timbral Structures,” 93.
44
approach to musical form is different, but one should discover new principles for form,
which would reflect our time.91 She shows a personal development of renewed interest in
spectral thinking of her subsequent music and continues her research with expressive
means and renewal thinking.
91
Ibid., 132.
45
Chapter 2: Introduction to Gérard Grisey
Recognized as one of the main proponents of the spectral movement in France,
Gérard Grisey died at the untimely age of 52 on November 11, 1998. He has been
identified as one of the most important French composers since Pierre Boulez.
Born on June 17, 1946 in Belfort near the Swiss border, Grisey initially studied at
the Trossingen Conservatory in Germany from 1963 to 1965, with Henri Dutilleux at the
l'École Normale Supérieure de Musique in France, and at the Conservatoire de Paris
under Olivier Messiaen from 1968 to 1972. Growing out of the French musical heritage
and influenced by Dutilleux and Messiaen, Grisey inherited the harmonic and sonic
sensitivity of the French tradition. In 1972, Grisey also attended the Darmstadt Summer
Courses where he studied with Ligeti, Stockhausen, and Xenakis, among whom
Stockhausen probably had the most influence on him. Grisey also studied acoustics with
Emile Leipp at the University of Paris in 1974 and 1975. Having received the highly
reputed Prix de Rome, Grisey spent two years, between 1972 and 1974, at the famous
Villa Medici in Rome. This was an especially important period of Grisey’s life: during
his residence there, he met Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi and rejoined with former
Conservatoire classmates Tristan Murail and Michäel Lévinas, with both of whom he
46
co-founded the ensemble L'Itinéraire in 1973. L'Itinéraire became widely renowned for
its dedication to programming many premieres, performing contemporary music by
composers like Scelsi and Salvatore Sciarrino (b. 1947), and exploring the relationship
between live acoustic instrumental performance and electronic instruments.
Grisey was also influential as a teacher. One of his distinguished pupils was Finnish
composer Magnus Lindberg (b. 1958), who studied privately with Grisey in Paris. Grisey
taught for many years at the Darmstadt Summer Courses and at IRCAM. He taught at the
University of California at Berkeley from 1982 to 1986, until he returned to France as
Professor of Composition at the Conservatoire de Paris, where he remained until his
death in 1998.
Musical Influences
The music of Grisey remains strongly connected to the tradition of Western music.
His Le Temps et l'Écume (1988–89) for four percussionists, two synthesizers and
chamber orchestra exhibits a heritage from Debussy in terms of luminous sounds and
harmonies with a wide variety of orchestral colors. With the aid of timbre, certain
passages of Le Temps et l'Écume create a dreamy atmosphere. Grisey learned
compositional techniques from his teachers and contemporaries. Grisey learned about
47
Messiaen’s unique color-thinking and harmonic language while studying under him for
fours years. Stockhausen’s interest in structure and time influenced Grisey’s
compositional process. He further understood and used Ligeti’s idea of continuity, as well
as Xenakis’ ideas about long sustained sounds and sound masses. These composers and
their ideas had a great impact on Grisey’s music. Grisey cited Ligeti’s Lontano as an
enormously influential work: the work’s slow timbral progression was an inspiration for
Grisey to try to create music mainly based on timbre.92 Grisey makes a connection with
Ligeti in terms of the use of microtones and the overtone series. In some of Ligeti’s
recent music, for example, Sonata for Viola (1991–94), the pitch material of the first
movement is based on the overtone series. Ligeti furthermore shows interest in
microtonality in the Double Concerto for flute, oboe and orchestra (1972), his 1982 work,
Trio for Horn, Violin, and Piano as well as Hamburgisches Konzert93 (1998–2002), for
horn and chamber orchestra. Ligeti’s purpose for using microtones is to leave the realm
of either pure or equal temperament;94 while for spectral composers, microtones are
“simply approximations of a set of frequencies to the nearest available musical pitches.”95
92
Anthony Cornicello, Timbral Organization in Tristan Murail’s Désintégrations (Ph.D. diss. Brandeis
University, 2000). 21.
93
The fifth movement of Hamburgisches Konzert entitled “Spectra.”
94
Paul Griffiths, György Ligeti, London, 1983, 85.
95
48
Grisey had an interest in the music of Conlon Nancarrow96, who developed tempo
proportions, creating complex temporal works throughout his scores. Focusing on
temporal ideas, Nancarrow superimposes various tempi simultaneously in his early works,
such as in Study No. 3797 (in the late 1960s) for player piano. Grisey who was also
interested in temporal plans, devised independent sections with different temporal
relationships in some of his pieces. Furthermore, Grisey also cited Paul Hindemith’s
(1895–1963) principal treatise The Craft of Musical Composition as an inspiration for his
researches into sum and difference tones as generators of harmonic fields.98
Grisey was greatly influenced by Stockhausen, and his piece Stimmung in particular.
Stimmung, a piece for six vocalists written in 1968, shares with early spectral music an
interest in the use of the harmonic spectrum. The German title translates into the word
“tuning” or “mood”; it may refer to the tuning of instruments, but in a more poetic sense,
it may allude to certain mental states, such as “the tuning of the soul.” When people who
feel in tune with one another they are said to be in a good Stimmung.99 It is one of the
first Western pieces mainly based on a single chord, a fragment of a harmonic spectrum
based on low Bb. It is also a piece emphasizing individual partials of the harmonic series
96
Grisey, “ Gérard Grisey,” Interview by David Bundler in 1996. URL:
97
Study No. 37 is a series of twelve canons, which moves at a different tempo individually.
98
99
Paul Hillier, “Stimmung,” 2007. URL: http://www.paulhillier.net/documents/stimmung.
49
and certain formants by humming the overtone melodies. Stimmung is a challenge for
vocalists—in his program notes on the work Stockhausen indicates that “to check the
intonation of the singers, a chord of seven sine waves or square waves must be produced
and recorded on tape with certain frequencies.”100 The singers that premiered the piece
spent six months learning how to sing each of the harmonics precisely. In Stimmung the
harmonic usage is very limited, the rate of change is really slow, and it focuses on the
timbral transformations, which are constantly shifting. In terms of structure, the single
harmonic spectrum is identical with the small-scale detail (made up of the individual
harmonic spectra projected by each of the six voices).101 This microcosmical and
macrocosmical structure also applies to his piece Mantra (1970), which will be
introduced later in this chapter.
Stockhausen’s exploration of the overtone series and the unorthodox vocal
techniques used in Stimmung probably had a crucial influence on the spectral composers.
For instance, Grisey’s Les chants de l'amour (1984), for 12 mixed voices and
computer-generated tape, is a piece that recalls certain characteristics of Stimmung since
in both pieces, singers intone the syllables and produce melodies through overtone
singing.
100
Stockhausen, Karl Heinz, Stimmung,(New York, Universal Edition, 1968).
101
50
In addition to Stimmung, Grisey was also influenced by Stockhausen’s Mikrophonie
I, one of the first pieces for live electronics. This work is scored for tamtam, 2
microphones, 2 filters, and controllers, in which “the microphone is no longer a passive
tool for high fidelity reproduction: it becomes a musical instrument, influencing what it is
recording.”102 The term “mikrophonie” refers to, in Stockhausen’s words, a microphonic
process where Stockhausen is making normally inaudible sounds audible. Grisey voices a
similar idea in his treatise Tempus ex Machina: A Composer’s Reflections on Music
Time: “The more we expand auditory acuity to perceive the microphonic world, the more
we draw in our temporal acuity.”103
Other than Stimmung and Mikrophonie, Stockhausen’s Mantra also had a profound
impact on Grisey’s musical thinking. In addition to the meaning of a repeated phrase, the
word Mantra as from the Vedic tradition of India, is a sacred verbal formula chanted as a
prayer that is more commonly connected to Hindu tradition within Buddhism. The piece
Mantra, composed and premiered in 1970, is scored for two pianos and live electronics
consisting of two ring modulators, two sound compressors and filters, two sine-wave
generators, and two microphone amplifiers. Each pianist is also provided with a set of
102
Karlheinz Stockhausen, Stockhausen on Music (London and New York: Marion Boyars, 1989): 80.
103
Gérard Grisey, “Tempus ex Machina: A Composer’s Reflection on Musical Time,” tran. S.
Welbourn. Contemporary Music Review 2 (1987): 259. This thesis was presented in Damstadt in 1980
and was revised in 1985. An English translation publishes in 1987.
51
thirteen-note antique cymbals and wood blocks. Stockhausen uses the term “mantra” to
avoid the term “theme”. He removes thematic conception by using the identical melody
entirely throughout a piece in which repetition is expanded and contracted over a period
of time.
The structure of Stockhausen’s composition is unique: a single melodic formula
determines both large form and small-scale detail. In other words, “one formula is spread
over a very long time span and where every detail is just a different dimension of this
same formula.”104 Mantra is the first of a long succession of formula compositions, a
technique used mainly in Stockhausen’s works, in which the form results from projection,
contraction, and expansion of a melodic formula. For instance, near the end of the piece
there is a fast section that is a compression of the whole work. According to the composer,
“the mantra itself has thirteen notes, and each cymbal sound occurring once in the piece
indicates the large sections—you hear the cymbal whenever a new central sound
announces the next section of the work.”105 The corresponding cymbal pitches are
matched to the mantra’s melody. Moreover, each of the thirteen notes in the mantra has
an attached specific form.106 For example, the first four notes of the formula have the
104
Ibid., 223.
105
Cott, 220–22.
106
Ibid., 227.
52
following characteristics: note A is a periodic repetition, note B has an accent at the end,
note G-sharp is normal, and note E has an appoggiatura.107 In addition to its different
nature, each of the thirteen notes is assigned an individual dynamic. Stockhausen deals
with this through a distinctive procedure: a note’s volume is almost inversely
proportional to its duration. Thus if a note’s dynamic is softer, then its duration is longer,
and vice versa. The first note is the only exception to this rule. The structure of the
composition is predetermined, however this structure is not always strict.
The work contains a pair of melodies: the upper and lower part. The upper part is the
original series played by the first piano and the lower voice is the inversion of the upper
one played by the second piano. The most substantial feature of Mantra is its use of ring
modulation to color the piano timbre.108 In terms of ring-modulator effects, sounds from
two pianos captured by a microphone are routed through ring modulators. Each pianist
operates a ring-modulator and a sine-tone generator to modulate the piano sound. Each
piano’s sounds are fed into the ring modulator along with a sine wave, the purest sound.
What comes out of the ring modulator is the sum and the difference of the two
frequencies. The modulated sound is played over loudspeakers placed behind and above
the pianists.
107
Ibid.
108
53
The music of Grisey shows the influence of Stockhausen’s thought and practice and
it is evident that Mantra is certainly an inspiration for Grisey. In the next chapter, we will
see in particular how Stockhausen’s ideas of predetermination of structure and
compression of work in Mantra have a crucial impact on Grisey’s larger work Vortex
Temporum (1994–96).
Musical Time
Time and timbre are often strongly connected in compositions of spectral composers.
Grisey was especially fascinated by the perception of time and transitions between
sounds. He had largely exposed his aesthetical points of view about musical time and
duration in his treatise: “Tempus ex Machina: A Composer’s Reflections on Musical
Time,” where he addresses his concepts of temporal structure and reflections on sounds
extensively in a very personal and poetic way. In this text, Grisey’s musical time is
interpreted and made up by what he somewhat abstractly calls the skeleton of time, the
flesh of time, and the skin of time. Each layer has a distinctive feature (table 2.1). By
skeleton of time, Grisey means “the temporal divisions that the composer uses to
organize sounds.”109 The unit of measurement for the skeleton of time is conceptual time.
Under the headline of the skeleton of time, Grisey identifies rhythms and durations in the
109
Grisey, “Tempus ex Machina: A Composer’s Reflection on Musical Time,” 239.
54
following way:
a) by relating it to a given pulse, the meter, in the form of a periodic reference point.[…]
Each rhythm is perceived in its qualitative relationship to meter (on the beat, off the beat)
but also in its quantitative relationship to meter (longer or shorter than the beat).
b) Without a reference pulse we are no longer talking of rhythm but of durations. Each
duration is perceived quantitatively by its relationship to preceding and successive
durations.110
Because listeners lack a reference point, our quantitative perception of musical time is
more relative. As a result of this, the tempi in Grisey’s music rarely have structural
implications, “more often, they serve to compress or expand a musical sequence.”111
The Skeleton of Time The Flesh of Time

Conceptual Time Perceptual Time
Quantitative Qualitative
Table 2.1. Grisey’s conceptions of musical time.
Compared to the quantitative approach of the skeleton of time, Grisey considers the
flesh of time a more qualitative perspective of time and “approaches the immediate
perception of time in its relationships with the sound material.”112 With the focus on the
sound itself, the flesh of time will “inhabit and envelop the temporal skeleton with their
density and complexity.”113 Therefore musical contexts affect our perception of time.
110
Ibid., 239-240.
111
Ibid., 242.
112
Ibid., 257-258.
113
Ibid., 257.
55
The same skeleton of time “may be perceived differently according to the way in which
the volumes and weights of the musical flesh are distributed”114. In other words, our
perception of time depends on the musical events within a passage of time. I will return
to this later.
The skin of time is the most abstract layer, relating psychological and sociological
areas to the listener. Grisey does not try to answer questions involving these two aspects;
instead, he brings up a couple of issues for the reader to think about: how does the
listener’s memory choose what he perceives? What roles does his culture and musical
education play in this choice? Memory, which includes the memory of the sound event
and the cognitive memory of the listener115, is the central subject in this section. This
layer of time, according to the author, is “a place of communication between musical
time and the listener’s time.”116
A significant issue in Grisey’s treatise is his scale of complexity, under the heading
of the skeleton of time. He criticizes some earlier attempts at dealing with dualistic
categories of durations as insufficient and instead proposes a more evolutionary way.
Grisey first sets up two axes of extremes; the first in the rhythmic parameter between
114
Ibid., 258.
115
Ibid., 272.
116
Ibid., 272.
56
periodic rhythms and irregular ones, the second one in the field of timbre between
harmonic sounds and noise-based sounds. Grisey then creates a concept to logically
organize these materials. He sets up his own scale and lists five essential classifications
that range from periodic to smooth, from most to least predictable and from order to
disorder, from which we can construct a continuum.117 These classifications chosen by
Grsiey, are “arbitrary, but which has the advantage of reverting to the phenomena of
musical times as they are perceived and allowing a continuity to be grasped.”118 Table
2.2 from his article “Tempus ex Machina” mentioned above, demonstrates Grisey’s
aforementioned concept.119 This approach opens the way to a new conception of musical
time and can also apply to timbral organization.
117
Ibid., 244.
118
Ibid.
119
Ibid.
57
Table 2.2. A scale of complexity for durations.
Periodicity is the most regular repetition and “the most simple, most probable
phenomenon”120 in this scale, as shown in Figure 2.1. Grisey considers it “as an ideal
point of reference for the perception of time.”121 “Continuous-dynamic”, the next step on
the scale, is of “average predictability” and contains either a continuous acceleration or a
continuous deceleration, which can be seen in Figures 2.2a and 2.2b.122 To make an
acceleration or a deceleration, one simply adds or subtracts a regular duration to the
preceding one; or multiplies or divides the preceding duration by a factor. Grisey points
out that “these ‘curves’ bring a great flexibility to the temporal distribution of sounds
120
Ibid., 245.
121
Ibid.
122
To visualize these accelerations and decelerations, Grisey displays the events on the ordinate and the
time on the abscissa.
58
whilst controlling the degree of tension and the speed of the processes.”123
Fig. 2.1. Periodic durations.
Fig. 2.2a. Arithmetrical progression.
123
59
Fig. 2.2b. Geometric progression.
The following step is called “Discontinuous-dynamic.” To prevent logarithmic
curves and thus processes with a predictable outcome, Grisey indicates that there are two
ways of achieving unpredictability. One way is to skip sections of a succession of events,
that is, acceleration or deceleration by elision (fig. 2.3a); as a result, a later moment
appears suddenly. “Such a phenomenon would be perceived either as a simple
discontinuity, or in the best of cases as a compression of the acceleration process.”124
The other way, statistical accelerations and decelerations (fig. 2.3b), is through deviations
within the process, namely acceleration or deceleration by phases. The contour of the
sequence is retained, but the listener will pay more attention to the present moment than
124
Ibid., 253.
60
to the actual sequence that has excessive discontinuity125.
Fig. 2.3a. Acceleration by elision.
Fig. 2.3b. Statistical acceleration.
“Statistical,” the last step in the scale of complexity, has “no possibility of
prediction.”126 This is absolute discontinuity, “like a veritable white noise of
125
The actual sense of the sequence may be too fast or too slow.
126
61
durations.”127 The final classification Grisey labels “Smooth.” This is “seamlessness”
and the length of the temporal divisions is absent: “a rare case of the total absence of any
event, single sound or rhythmic silence.”128
Grisey concludes that the degree of complexity is simply a reference for the reader
to tackle the problem of musical time, but “such a schema is never affixed exactly to
musical reality, which is infinitely more complex.”129
After having gone through Grisey’s “the skeleton of time”, I will now continue the
layer of “the flesh of time.” Here Grisey discusses the “degree of pre-audibility”,
“duration and microphony”, and “object and process.” Grisey believes that the composer
who wants to give time a musical value must focus on the degree of predictability, or the
degree of pre-audibility.130 Grisey explains:
It is no longer the single sound whose density will embody time, but rather
the difference of lack of difference between one sound and its neighbor; in
other words, the transition from the known to the unknown and the
amount of information that each sound event introduces.131
127
Ibid.
128
Ibid., 257.
129
Ibid.
130
Ibid., 258.
131
Ibid.
62
The density between two sound events “is not a constant, but which expands and
contracts according to the event.”132 Musical time seems to unfold at different speeds
depending on the newer sound’s predictability. As a result of this, Grisey proposes that
besides normal time, there are two types of musical time: contracted time and expanded
time. For contracted time, Grisey says that an unexpected sound event “disturbs the linear
unfolding of time and which leaves a violent impression in our memories, makes us less
likely to grasp the shape of the musical discourse.”133 On the other hand, his definition of
expanded time is of “a series of extremely predictable sound events [which] gives us
ample allowance for perception. The slightest event acquires an importance.”134
Furthermore, Grisey makes an analogy between what he refers to as human time and
inhuman time. “The composition of sound objects refers to instrumental gesture…it
remains human because it is never very far from language; the composition of process
springs from everyday gestures…it is inhuman, cosmic…a world of impersonal
individuations.” Therefore, Grisey characterizes these time prototypes as human time or
normal time, and inhuman time, which includes contracted time and expanded time.
Grisey endeavors to combine these three time layers, that is, to integrate contracted time
132
Ibid.
133
Ibid., 259.
134
Ibid.
63
with the time of speech, and with extended time in his music. Vortex Temporum
and L’icone paradoxale (1992–94) for soprano, mezzo-soprano and two orchestral
groups are two fine examples of this that clearly illustrates Grisey’s temporal approach.
In L’icone paradoxale, the harmonies move at the speed of expanded time; in other
words, the rate of harmonic changes is slow. Additionally, these three temporal scales
mentioned above determine the form and the content of the work.135
Controlling time in this way leads Grisey to an interesting discovery: the acuity of
auditory perception is inversely proportional to that of temporal perception.136 In a
portion of expanded time, one perceives a slow time frame. To perceive this expansion of
time, Grisey mainly focuses on every internal and slight event, and makes an effort to
perceive the microphonic world. Murail who shares this perception once said “a time
where even the smallest details are carefully perfected (like in a Japanese garden), even
those details which are not immediately visible.”137 Regarding microphony, Grisey
thinks that “as a result of the extreme expansion of time, we arrive at the very heart of
sound whose material is revealed by the effect of an inordinate magnification.”138
135
Timothy R. Sullivan, Gérard Grisey’s Quatre Chants pour franchir le seuil: Spectral Music on the
Threshold, Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 2008: 63.
136
137
Murail, “After-thoughts,” 271.
138
64
In regards to musical time, Grisey’s concept of time links him to Scelsi’s idea of
“smooth time.” Grisey notes that most sounds are fluctuating, and rarely completely static;
“they are alive like cells, with a birth, life and death, and above all tend towards a
continual transformation of their own energy.”139 For example, in Jour, Contre-Jour
(1978–79) for electric organ, 14 musicians, and tape, Grisey adopts the principle of
formal continuity. This piece is based entirely on continuous transformations,”140 and
Murail considers Jour, Contre-Jour “one of the most formally smooth pieces.”141 Grisey
defines object and process as follows:
By definition, we will say that sound is transitory. It is not defined by an

isolated moment, nor by a series of isolated moments fastidiously realized
and placed in sequence.[…] object and process are analogous. The sound
object is only a process which has been contracted, the process nothing
more than an dilated sound object. […] Time is like the air that these two
living organisms breathe at different altitudes.142
Some Trademarks of Grisey’s Music
With a preoccupation of the nature of overtones, Grisey dealt with all kinds of
spectra. In his early career, Grisey analyzed instrumental spectra and the constitutions of
their harmonic series, and then wrote pieces that used them as models. One of the
139
Ibid., 268.
140
141
Ibid.
142
Grisey, “Tempus ex Machina: A Composer’s Reflection on Musical Time,” 268-69.
65
superficial features of spectral music is the employment of microtones. Grisey did not
necessarily intend to write micro-intervals in his music, but included them “as a need
given by the nature of sound”143 As an exploration of extended time and continuity, he
incorporated them in his music. Spectralists do not always think of music in terms of
pitches since they work with sounds.144 As Murail points out that pitches “will be
measured by frequency (hertz), not by chromatic degree, and the continuum of
frequencies will be controlled by the concept of spectra.”145 Furthermore, Grisey
attempted to delve into the nature of human perception. Helmut Lachenmann once
depicted Grisey’s musical language in the following way:
Grisey's music: a mysterious lever —without secrets—inviting one on

luminous voyages of listening towards a metamorphosis. Voluptuous
irritation of the experience of sound and time—in perpetual transformation,
decomposing and crystallizing: Phoenix and ashes at the same time.
Grisey's music always astonishes the senses and mind differently—and
surprises itself at the same time.146
Among pieces of spectral music, Grisey’s magnum opus, Les Espaces Acoustiques,
serves as a touchstone of the spectral school’s theories and practices. The work is a
six-piece cycle, written over an eleven-year period from 1974 to 1985 for various
143
Gérard Grisey, “ Gérard Grisey,” Interview by David Bundler in 1996. URL:
144
Anderson, “In Harmony: Julian Anderson Introduces the Music and Ideas of Tristan Murail,” 321.
145
146
Helmut Lachenmann, “Vortex Temporum for piano and five instruments: Material abolished,” in liner
notes for Gérard Grisey: Vortex Temporum-Talea, 1996, Accord 206352, 1996, compact disc.
66
ensembles, lasting more than one and a half hours in total. There is a unique, gradual
enlargement of the ensemble size over the course of the cycle, ranging from the viola solo
Prologue to music for a full orchestra of 84 players in the final two pieces, Transitoires
and Épilogue. Each piece was composed separately and can be performed independently,
or played with any adjacent piece in the work; i.e. the ending of the first piece is the
beginning of the second. Its first complete performance was on September 28, 1985
in Venice, performed by BBC Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Peter Eötvös. The
order and the size of the ensembles of Les Espaces Acoustiques are shown below by
Table 2.3.
Piece Year Composed Instrumentation Duration

Prologue 1976 viola solo 15:28
Périodes 1974 7 musicians 15:28
Partiels 1975 18 musicians 22:02
Modulations 1977 33 musicians 16:10
Transitoires 1981 large orchestra 19:54
Épilogue 1985 4 solo horns and 8:03
large orchestra
Table 2.3. Pieces of Les Espaces Acoustiques.
The third piece, Partiels, is a defining spectral composition. The opening of the
piece is derived from a sonogram analysis of a low E1 pedal tone on the trombone, and
sixteen or eighteen instruments are used to synthesize, or simulate, the spectrum. Partials
67
of that spectrum are distributed among the instruments of the ensemble. This is very
similar to some of Messiaen’s compositional ideas in pieces like Couleurs de la Cité
Céleste (1963), scored for piano, wind ensemble and percussion. Messiaen transforms the
timbre of trombone’s pedal-notes by adding high pitches played on clarinets which can
be seen in several slow passages in Couleurs de la Cité Céleste, as shown by Example 2.1.
He defines two harmonic areas: those that belong to the harmonics of the trombone notes
and those that are outside of theses tones. When an instrument plays tones outside of the
trombones harmonics, the effect is a sense of distortion. An example of this is the chord
in m. 40 played by three clarinets. The two chords shown in m. 40 and m. 89 are both
based on the same fundamental of Db, but Messiaen deploys clarinet parts in a different
way: the latter has a lesser degree of the trombone distortion timbre. Besides linking to
the past, Partiels initiates a new technique which Grisey called “instrumental synthesis.”
Compared with the computer-driven additive synthesis, this uses the instruments as the
underlying components of a global sound and elaborates the sound. Grisey did this very
often in his compositions. The result is that we perceive a completely “new”, synthetic
timbre.147
147
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Ex. 2.1. Olivier Messiaen, Couleurs de la Cité Céleste, mm. 40–43 and mm. 87–92.
Other than the use of the spectral technique such as the one mentioned above, Grisey
often looked for inspiration in culture, art and philosophy. Anubis-Nout (1983) for bass
clarinet shows his long-standing fascination with ancient Egypt. The titles Anubis and
Nout both comes from ancient Egyptian mythology: Anubis is the god of the underworld;
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Nout is the goddess of the sky. Furthermore Grisey selected texts from ancient Greek
poetry, Babylonian, Egyptian and French writings for his final work Quatre Chants pour
Franchir le Seuil (1997–98) for soprano and a fifteen-member chamber ensemble.
Although the texts of the song cycle come from different cultures, they all involve the
subject of death. The four songs are titled: The Death of an Angel, The Death of
Civilization, The Death of the Voice, and The Death of Humanity.
Spectral composers share an interest in reiteration, gradual transformation and
continuously evolving processes with minimal music; however, the two types of music
are not the same. In minimalist music a pattern is repeated in a steady ceaseless
continuity with one or two notes of the pattern changed. “The types of processes found in
spectral music” in Fineberg’s view, “are significantly different from those of minimalist
music, for example, in that they affect all the musical parameters together, rather than
acting on only one or two (like phasing).”148 Moreover, in contrast to minimalist music,
spectral music “had more to do with explorations of time and timbre.”149 One can find
there are minimalistic qualities present in Grisey’s music: there are strong echoes of
minimalism in several sections filled with repetitive patterns in Vortex Temporum, as we
will see in a more detailed analysis of Vortex Temporum later in this paper.
148
149
Bob Gilmore, “The Climate Since Harry Partch,” Contemporary Music Review, 22:1 (2003), 30.
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Chapter 3: Gérard Grisey’s Vortex Temporum
General Content
In this chapter I will present an analysis of Gérard Grisey’s Vortex Temporum for
piano and a quintet of flute, clarinet, violin, viola and violoncello (1994–96). In his late
masterpiece, Grisey has the flutist play all four members of the flute family from bass
flute to piccolo, the Bb clarinet tuned a quarter-tone lower, and the piano with four notes
tuned a quarter-tone lower to fit with the micro-intervals played on the other instruments.
This forty-three minute piece was commissioned by the French Ministry of Culture,
Ministerium für Kunst Baden-Würtemberg and the Westdeutsche Rundfunk Köln, at the
special request of Ensemble Recherche.150 Completed in 1996 just two years before the
composer’s sudden death, the work is in three movements that are dedicated to Gérard
Zinsstag (b. 1941), Salvatore Sciarrino (b. 1947), and Helmut Lachenmann (b. 1935),
respectively.
The Latin title means “Vortex of Time”, indicating an action of swirls. The work’s
poetic focus is on a conception of time rotating, or time’s movement. Grisey employs the
swirling idea of repeated arpeggios in the opening of the work’s first movement directly
150
Gérard Grisey, program notes to Vortex Temporum,
http://www.mondayeveningconcerts.org/notes/grisey-vortex.html.
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and clearly. As stated previously, musical time is a concept that Grisey was fascinated
with for most his life and that he was able to explore in his second to last completed work
Vortex Temporum. In his program note, Grisey proposes three archetypes of time (table
3.1), which we have already seen in chapter two: normal time, expanded time, and
contracted time. Normal time or human time, which is the basic archetype including the
tempo of speech and breathing; expanded time, which Grisey conceives to be the time of
the whales; and contracted time, or the time of birds and insects where the borders
become blurred.151 His program note also describes the work’s use of three basic forms:
“the original event – a sinusoidal wave – and two continuous events, an attack with or
without resonance as well as a sound held with or without crescendo.”152 The work is
thus a study on an arpeggio figure and an exploration of time as perceived by humans,
whales, birds and insects, as Grisey imagined it. To exemplify this idea of various life
forms sharing different aspects of time, Grisey implements a common compositional
technique in using similar material at different times.153
151
Ibid.
152
Ibid.
153
Ibid.
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Human time Normal time Time of speech
Inhuman time Expanded time Time of whale
Contracted time Time of bird
Table 3.1. Grisey’s temporal scales.
Vortex Temporum I
The tempo of the first movement, described by Grisey as “joyful”, embodies the
composer’s idea of “human” time. The opening gesture of the work resembles a
sinusoidal wave, which is a periodic waveform. Grisey uses it as one of the basic events
of this movement and utilizes gestures that resemble waveforms in a repeating musical
pattern in different sections of the piece. Example 3.1a illustrates the moving waves of
sound, arpeggiated in the piano. In this movement, the waveform is the basis for the form
and structure. The first movement is divided into three distinct sections as indicated by
Table 3.2, and each of these three divisions is based on three different waveforms: a
sinusoidal wave, a square wave, or a saw-tooth wave. A square wave, a kind of
non-sinusoidal waveform, alternates between two levels. As for a saw-tooth wave, this
type of waveform looks like the teeth of a saw. A saw-tooth wave ramps upward and then
sharply drops or vice versa. Grisey’s musical gestures represent these waves in the
following pattern: a series of arpeggio followed by a dotted rhythmic patterning and

73
finally a dramatic piano solo (Example 3.1).
1st Section 2nd Section 3rd Section

Rehearsal numbers 1-37 Rehearsal numbers 38-67 Rehearsal numbers 68-85
sine wave square wave saw-tooth wave
arpeggio formula dotted rhythm piano solo
Table 3.2. Vortex Temporum I, broken into sections.
a. Sine wave movement, on the piano.
b. Square wave movement, on the violoncello.

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c. Saw-tooth wave movement, on the piano.
Ex. 3.1. Wave forms found in Vortex Temporum I.
In addition to utilizing the idea of the waveform, Grisey makes a strong reference to
traditional classical music in this particular piece. The work opens with “Ravel’s
arpeggio” in which the flutist outlines the principle melodies of the work. The beginning
sixteenth-note phrase is a borrowed motif from Ravel’s Daphnis et Cloë, although it is
not a literal citation.
Moreover, as was stated in the first chapter, spectral compositions make use of
melodies or motives in a non-traditional sense. In Vortex Temporum, Grisey tries to find a
new way to deal with melody. He analyzes, dissects, and redistributes Ravel’s arpeggio.
The motif taken from Daphnis et Cloë possesses a flowing structure basically consisting
of a diminished seventh chord (fig. 3.1), while in Vortex Temporum, Grisey keeps the
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same melodic contour in the flute part, but twists it into a distorted diminished seventh
chord. The composer explains, “[the word] vortex suggested to me harmonic writings
focusing around the four tones of the diminished seventh chord, a rotational chord par
excellence. Treating each of these tones as leading ones, we obtain the possibility of
multiple modulations.”154 The entire opening is truly based upon a single phenomenon
filled with arpeggios. Throughout the course of the movement, Ravel’s arpeggio is
contracted and stretched beyond recognition. Fig. 3.2 shows how the flute melodic
contour changes, as the movement proceeds.
Fig. 3.1. Comparisons of distorted and normal diminished 7th chords.
Fig. 3.2. The initial flute gesture becomes unrecognizable as the movement proceeds.
154
Ibid.
76
Regarding the pitch material, the opening section of the first movement is based on
an unfolding of the initial chord. Grisey changes the chord for the first time at rehearsal
number 6. Then at rehearsal number 7, the initial chord returns. At rehearsal number 10, a
completely new chord is displayed, and right after the debut of the new chord, the music
returns to the initial chord at rehearsal number 11. At rehearsal number 13, another
previous chord is recycled. The progression reveals three chords rotating continuously in
rehearsal numbers 1 through 19 as shown in Figure 3.3. These three chords share similar
properties even though the fundamental below them changes. Excluding the fundamental,
the three main chords are basically composed of minor thirds, sometimes stretched or
compressed a bit due to quarter-tones. There are symmetrical properties, similar to that of
a diminished 7th chord, which comprises three stacked minor thirds. This idea of rotation
echoes the essence of the diminished seventh chord, which can be rotated and respelled
enharmonically. The symmetry also undermines any sense of “tonic” or harmonic pull,
which also lends to the rotational quality. In addition, the four retuned notes on the piano
also form a diminished seventh chord as indicated in Figure 3.4. As mentioned above, the
sense of rotation and symmetry corresponds to the spirit of the arpeggio from Ravel’s
Daphnis et Cloë. The piano uses four quarter-tones in this piece; however, in the third
section the piano uses only three of these quartertones. It seems to me that the C
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quarter-tone flat is saved for the second movement.
In terms of the harmonic structure of the first section, the initial chord actually
shares several common tones with the second chord, which is mostly identical with the
initial one, but in a different order. To me, the significant harmonic change in the first
section comes at rehearsal number 10 since the third chord only shares one note with
either the initial or second chord (fig. 3.5).

78
Fig. 3.3. Vortex Temporum I, Chord progression from beginning to rehearsal no.
20.
79
Fig. 3.4. Diminished 7th chords found in Vortex Temporum and Daphnis et Cloë.
Fig. 3.5. Common tones between the three main chords in Vortex Temporum I.
Each phrase of the first section seems to model the attacks and decays of sound
objects, beginning with an attack transient and then fading away through a diminuendo.
The recurring arpeggio material and its variations in different time spans help us to sense
the diminuendo process of a sound object through diverse durations. At the same time,
the initial arpeggio motif undergoes a process of diminution while an acceleration
happens simultaneously. Through a series of acceleration, an entire musical phrase gets
compressed. From the beginning of the piece to rehearsal number 38, for instance, each
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of the phrases gradually gets shorter and shorter, and the result of the shortening of the
phrases has the effect of a “global” accelerando. The first phrase starts with 64 sixteenth
notes and each subsequent phrase is reduced by 3 sixteenth notes each time except for the
second phrase which is reduced by 4 (table 3.2). Rehearsal number 6 with 65 sixteenth
notes is reduced by 5 at rehearsal number 10 and rehearsal number 20 with 40 sixteenth
notes is reduced by 8 at rehearsal number 22. The section, where each phrase is shortened
by degrees, continues in this way to move forward, until the short duration of fifteen
sixteenth notes brings it to the end of the section. This exact mathematic method is well
controlled both naturally and musically by Grisey: as mentioned above, Grisey was very
influenced and reflects the influence of Stockhausen. Evidence of that can be found in the
structural plans for this movement. The shortening process corresponds to the harmonic
change: where there are the second and third chords, there are phrases shortened by 5
(rehearsal numbers 6 and 10, for instance). Otherwise, the music with the initial chord in
rehearsal numbers 7 through 9, for example, becomes shortened by 3.

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RN Sixteenth Notes Decrease RN Sixteenth Notes Decrease

1 64 16 45 5
2 61 17 30 3
3 57 3 18 40 5
4 54 3 19 27 3
5 51 3 20 40 8
6 65 5 21 24 3
7 48 3 22 35 5
8 45 3 23 21 3
9 42 3 24 30 5
10 60 5 25 18 3
11 39 3 26 32 8
12 36 3 27 12
13 55 5 28 24 8
14 33 3 29 15
15 50 5 30 25
Table 3.2. Decrease in sixteenth notes by rehearsal number.
In terms of macro-rhythm, one can sense mainly the half note pulsation for the first
few phrases; as the movement progresses, that pulsation shortens as well. At rehearsal
number 14, the quarter note is the pulsation and at rehearsal number 34, the pulsation
shortens to eighth notes (ex. 3.2). This is the fast “contracted time.” Obsessed by
continuity, Grisey reiterates the arpeggio numerous times and slowly modulates it. With
extended repetitive patterns, there are also echoes of minimalism particularly in the first
section, which is an example showing the gradual continuous metamorphose from one
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state to another. The figuration taken from Daphnis et Cloë, that focuses on
simplification of pattern by the use of initial contour (Fig. 3.1) for a long period of time,
lasts almost three minutes without interruption. This process seems to move in endless
circles with patterns following one another, which suggests to me a minimalist character,
although this process does not work exactly like minimalist music. In the first section of
Vortex Temporum I, all the musical aspects change together as the music goes on, which
is different from a minimalist piece.
Rehearsal number: 1 14 34
Ex. 3.2. Examples of macro-rhythm found in the first section of Vortex Temporum I.
The first section showcases the piano and the woodwinds; the strings mainly play
long sustained notes. Conversely, the strings actively take the spotlight while the rest of
the ensemble plays the sustained notes in the second section. At the end of the first
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section, the piano, flute, clarinet, and violin pass momentum along to the viola and
violoncello. The undulating music of the first section immediately changes to the more
rhythmic and notched section.
The piano has the most outstanding role in this movement. The climax of the first
movement comes with a cadenza for the piano, involving sudden and striking contrasts in
which the piano section, as Grisey describes, “reaches the boundaries of virtuosity.” The
immensely difficult piano cadenza alternates between the highest and lowest registers
culminating in a frantic moment. The excerpt shown in Example 3.3 asks the pianist to
play a series of fast and dense clusters back and forth in which the rapidly moving notes
of the piano solo section displays wildness. This passage also breaks the seven-minute
long continuity from the beginning of the work with powerful pauses. All of this
contributes to the drama of the first movement.
Ex. 3.3. Vortex Temporum I, piano solo section, rehearsal nos. 78-82.
84
In the third section, Grisey approaches material in a unique way by alternating three
distinct materials, which each has its own tempo, meter and personality (table 3.3). The
idea of rotation, too, applies to the composer’s compositional procedure here. At the
beginning of this section, each phrase starts with a new tempo and corresponding motives;
after that, rules are broken, and everything is mixed up.
Material 1st 2nd 3rd
Rehearsal Number 68 and 71 69 and 72 70 and 73

Tempo 150 150 140
Meter 3/4 18/16 ?/8
Waveform saw-tooth sinusoidal and square saw-tooth
Table 3.3 Three materials in the third section of Vortex Temporum I.
As an example, the music at rehearsal number 68 is based on the saw-tooth
waveform found in the first section, but using a different time signature of 3/4 at
rehearsal number 68 (ex. 3.1c). Clusters of piano notes of various registers articulate it.
The way of hearing the second material at rehearsal number 69 is as a combination of
memories related to two motives from the preceding sections; the arpeggio formula and
dotted rhythm, which forms the sine wave on the top and the square wave on the bottom
(ex. 3.4). At rehearsal number 70 (ex. 3.5) we hear the third material for the first time,
with a tempo change. After completing the first cycle, the music returns to the first
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material at rehearsal number 71 and then continues into a new cycle; but the music does
not follow the rule for too long. For instance, the first material does not come back right
at the beginning of rehearsal number 74, instead, the second material presents; and at
rehearsal number 75, the variation of the second material only appears for one measure,
then substitutes immediately with the variation of the third material.
Ex. 3.4. Vortex Temporum I, the second material of the third section at rehearsal number
69.
Ex. 3.5. Vortex Temporum I, the third material of the third section at rehearsal number 70.
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The downbeat and third beat of each measure (from the beginning to rehearsal
number 5) could be heard as taking on the sonority of a gong. The group attacks help to
reinforce the idea of this illusion (ex. 3.6). This effect may be due to the fact that a gong
spectrum is similar to the combination of equal-tempered notes and microtones played on
the clarinet combined with the tempered F-natural and F-sharp notes.
Ex. 3.6. Vortex Temporum I, page 2.
Vortex Temporum II
The second movement presents what Grisey called “whale” time, an extremely
slowed tempo. It is chorale-like; calm and tranquil music emerging from the sound, and
then unfolding in a seamless continuum. The extreme calm continuity and low register of
the second movement creates a clear contrast with the preceding movement. According to
the composer, the second movement “approaches the same material [but] in expanded
time. [The] Initial Gestalt appears here only once, spreading throughout the entire
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movement.”155 In fact, it is impossible and inaudible for the listener to perceive and
recognize the first movement material in such a slow tempo, but one can still feel that the
undulating contour from the first movement transforms into the moving waves, stretched
out extremely over time (ex. 3.7a and 3.7b). The formal shapes and gestures in the piano
have clear descending trajectories: the piano plays a series of chords continuously,
without breaking. As the movement proceeds, the other instruments of the ensemble
enters the chorale-like and gently descending music played by the piano. Owing to the
slow progressing process, it is possible to notice details in the sounds. With his interest of
the perception of time, Grisey shows his concern about the listener’s memory as the
music unfolds over time. The continuity is maintained throughout the second movement
therefore the material is impossible for listeners to memorize except for the outline –
“and all that emerges is a hazy memory of the contours of the sound’s evolution.”156
Ex. 3.7a. The opening of Vortex Temporum I.
155
Ibid.
156
88
Ex. 3.7b. The opening of Vortex Temporum II.
In the first movement, Grisey attempts to employ different elements in each section,
but in contrast, he utilizes homogenic material exclusively in the second movement.
Blurring distinctions between harmony, timbre, and duration, this movement eliminates
the distinctions between form and material. As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter,
three basic forms (the original event and two continuous events) guide the piece. In this
movement, Grisey plays with a continuous event: sound objects held with crescendo and
diminuendo. Considering the movement as a whole, Grisey builds formal continuity by
having the pianist play identical material regularly on every beat and having the ensemble
play sustained long notes throughout this passage. The form of the movement is the
actual evolution of the sounds. To me, the second movement does not seem to be
sectional; instead, the movement is built up through nine successive phrases. Each phrase,
with its own register and harmonies, is transposed from the initial phrase. In addition, the
slow second movement is also structured by three various tempos: basic, more or less
89
expanded, and more or less contracted. From the middle section on, the tempo of the
music keeps changing and stays unstable (ex. 3.8.), which brings a certain dramatic
character to this movement. Even though the rate of harmonic change is slow, sounds
over long spans of time with crescendos and different tempos lead the music into the
climax of the movement.
Ex. 3.8. The tempo changes in Vortex Temporum II.
As I previously noted, in the first movement, the C quarter-tone flat on the piano
does not appear, but immediately at the beginning of the second movement, Grisey gives
more weight to the C quarter-tone by placing it in the flute as a sustained note, and in the
piano, as the highest note of dark, mysterious clusters. The C quarter-tone is to be played
for a while.
As mentioned in Chapter 1, there are many types of spectra such as harmonic and
inharmonic ones. In terms of the use of spectra in Vortex Temporum, Grisey rarely uses
the normal harmonic spectrum in this movement. Instead, he distorts spectra by
compressing or expanding them. Also, certain partials, sometimes even the fundamental,
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of these stretched or compressed spectra are often omitted. All of this makes it
challenging to analyze the harmony, let alone for the audience to hear the type of spectra
that is used at any particular time. I find that Grisey takes the distorted spectrum as a
point of departure for this movement. Let us look at a specific example of this in the
opening chords of the movement.
Immediately at the beginning of the violoncello part Grisey selects certain partials,
the second through twelfth, of a compressed harmonic series with the fundamental on C.
For the piano part, similarly, Grisey chooses a subset of pitches from another
“compressed” spectrum on a B fundamental. Figure 3.6 illustrates the derivation of the
piano and violoncello parts. The first staff in Figure 3.6 shows a normal harmonic
spectrum on B; the second shows selected partials from Grisey’s compressed spectrum on
B of the piano part.

91
Fig. 3.6. Derivation of piano and violoncello parts.
With the omission of the fundamental, the lowest partials in the opening of the
second movement are C-1/8 sharp on the violoncello and B on the piano. If Grisey’s
compressed spectra were to have appeared in their original form, we might identify them
easier. However, these two spectra both appear in their retrogressive forms. As a result,
Grisey begins this movement with E on the violoncello, the twelve partial of the
harmonic series. Similarly, the pianist starts with the ninth partial, the highest note of the
chord, which is played as an “inverted pedal.” It is interesting that a “pedal tone” B is
also played simultaneously in the left hand.
The first harmonic change in this movement occurs at rehearsal number 4, with the
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arrival of the second phrase. The pitches of the chord in the piano can be described as the
fifth through seventeenth partials of a stretched spectrum, with the fundamental on B-flat.
As noted previously, four piano notes are tuned a quartertone flat and it seems to me that
Grisey intended to place the retuned notes on the outer voices of the chord, which makes
the spectrum’s inharmonicity more apparent and produces clearly a unique harmony
throughout this passage. Figure 3.7 demonstrates how the four piano quartertones are
deployed in the movement. We can see, for instance, the C quarter-tone flat, D
quarter-tone sharp, and F quarter-tone sharp in the soprano while the A quarter-tone flat
in the bass. The rising and descending contour may also imply the fluid idea, borrowed
from Ravel’s arpeggio.
Fig. 3.7. The unfolding of the four piano quarter-tones in Vortex Temporum II.
Interludes
Each of the three movements is followed by a brief interlude exploring human

93
perception. Grisey calls the interlude a “bridge between time as perceived by the listener
and as laid out in composition,” and “linking the time of the audience with the time of the
work.”157 The interlude is a type of timbre-oriented music, filled with extremely soft
sounds and pitch-less noises. Noises, here, are in a musical sense. The composer wrote
that the noises, “color the awkward silence between movements. […] These tiny noises
are allied with the morphology of Vortex Temporum.”158 Such a noise-texture creates a
very subtle change of timbre; this type of timbral subtlety can be easily found in this
work, or in Grisey’s other scores. To display a variety of timbres and show the listener
how one’s ear is capable of distinguishing between them, the composer is asking the
clarinetist to alternate between one clarinet tuned a quarter tone lower and one tuned in a
normal fashion, and have the woodwinds produce breathy sounds.
Grisey’s remarkable ability for instrumental synthesis can be seen in these short
interludes in which the composer creates a quasi-electronic music world by using the
complex sounds of acoustic instruments. Grisey’s goal here is to carry fusional sound into
his music, a hybrid sonority that can be obtained through timbre and harmony
transformation, and to show the audience an aural richness, which exists in the
mysterious realm of sound.

157
Grisey, program notes to Vortex Temporum.
158
Ibid.
94
Summary
In summary, spectral composers regard time as the essential element of form and
treat it as a constituent element of sound itself.159 For Grisey, “spectral music has a
temporal origin.”160 This attitude is different from other composers as Grisey makes
efforts to give form to the exploration of “stretched time” and “contracted time.” More
importantly, with regard to formal aspect he uses “superposition and juxtaposition of
forms flowing within radically different time-frames”.161 Grisey examines this concept
well in his extraordinary work, Vortex Temporum. As other spectral music evades a sense
of strong and regular pulse, Grisey organized this piece by dealing with the issue of
duration through repeating the same material within different time frames. This is
because Grisey attempted to neutralize the material, which would allow him to play with
the memory and perception of the audience. The neutralized material is very efficient in
terms of process. This corresponds to some of the “spectral” consequences that Grisey
addresses in his article “Did you say spectral?”—the use of supple, neutral sonic
archetypes which facilitate the perception and memorization of processes.162 Due to
reiterations, additionally, listeners are able to focus more on slight changes including
159
Grisey, “Did You Say Spectral?” 2.
160
Ibid., 1.
161
Ibid., 3.
162
Ibid.
95
timbres and harmony. In such a process, providing listeners with “contracted time” or
“expanded time” by comparing with the beginning prototype, Vortex Temporum makes
time “palpable” and “audible.”

96
Conclusion
This dissertation has investigated the connection between form and compositional
process in the music of certain spectral composers. In Chapter One, the concept of typical
spectral compositional process was outlined and exemplified. In Chapter Two, a
definition of process was presented, and the relationship between Griseys’ concepts of
temporal structure and process was illustrated. In Chapter Three, Grisey’s use of formal
process and evolving attitude towards sounds was examined in Vortex Temporum.
“Immersed in science and philosophy, with a hunger for technological progress and
with consideration for the cultural as well as physical aspects of sound,”163 spectral
composers found new means to expand their compositional languages. It is essential to
remember that spectral composers can be divided into two groups: the group of Grisey
and the group of Murail. The most different feature of the two groups of composers is the
role of electronic music played in their pieces. For Murail, the use of the computer is
important to his compositional process; as for Grisey, sound-entities are relatively
essential to his compositional process rather than using new technological tools.
Spectral music has a special relationship to a state of continuous change since the
163
Castanet, Grisey and the Foliation of Time, 29.
97
nature of the spectrum is always in motion. Grisey and Murail use the idea of gradual
changes as the formal basis of their music and build a global sound from many individual
sounds where the global features are more important than the individual voices. Vortex
Temporum was analyzed to display how the evolution of the sounds contributes to formal
structure and to show the composer’s idea of shaping sound over time through slow
evolution from one state to another. By following the analysis presented in Chapter Three,
much more detailed observation of the use of spectral materials and the aspect of listener
perception can be further studied.
Much emphasis is placed on the notion of timbre and process in spectral
compositions, therefore a new way of analysis, which “would go straight to its goal—i.e.
to the composer’s intention and the effect perceived by the listener”164 is needed to help
us have a better understanding of this type of music. In addition, Grisey often uses
material with cultural connotations. With Vortex Temporum we saw his temporal
concerns and compositional language evolve the connection between spectral techniques
and Western classical music. Vortex Temporum embodies Grisey’s economic use of
musical material as well as the aural richness of harmonies.
164
Murail, “Scelsi, De-composer,” 179.
98
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Spectral Music and Gérard Grisey’s Vortex Temporum I and II

Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of

OFFICE OF GRADUATE STUDIES

All rights reserved

INFORMATION TO ALL USERS

and Helmut Lachenmann.

Chapter One is an introduction to the spectral movement, including the

characteristics of spectral music and the biographies of three generations of select

influence the musical style of Grisey.

general, indicated in Grisey’s essay “Tempus ex Machina” is also outlined here.

(picc/alto/C/bass), Bb clarinet (bass clarinet), violin, viola, and violoncello. In my

traditional Western classical music in the analysis.

First and foremost, I would like to heartily thank the members of my

on writing. I am especially thankful for John Aylward’s encouragement and

generosity in sharing his experience with Vortex Temporum.

unfailing support of my husband, Ching-Yen Chung. This dissertation is dedicated

List of Examples, Figures, and Tables__________________________________________ vii

Chapter One: An Introduction to Spectral Music __________________________________ 4

Technological Influences ________________________________________________________ 18

Historical Influence ____________________________________________________________ 25

Proto-spectralist: Scelsi _________________________________________________________ 26

Proto-spectralist: Ligeti _________________________________________________________ 29

Spectralist: Murail _____________________________________________________________ 31

Post-spectralist: Saariaho ________________________________________________________ 31

Chapter 2: Introduction to Gérard Grisey _______________________________________ 45

Musical Influences _____________________________________________________________ 46

Musical Time _________________________________________________________________ 53

Some Trademarks of Grisey’s Music _______________________________________________ 64

Chapter 3: Gérard Grisey’s Vortex Temporum ___________________________________ 70

General Content _______________________________________________________________ 70

Vortex Temporum I ____________________________________________________________ 72

Vortex Temporum II____________________________________________________________ 86

Fig. 1.1. 220 Hz FM Modulation___________________________________________24

Table 2.1. Grisey’s conception of musical time _______________________________ 52

Table 3.1: Grisey’s temporal scales_________________________________________ 68

Table 3.2. Decrease in sixteenth notes by rehearsal number ______________________77

established a high reputation for himself as a composer as well as a teacher of

composition. Spectral composers began their careers in a time of political instability in

compose differently from most composers in their generation.

to transpose certain conceptual behaviors of electronic music to the acoustic domain.

Grisey scholarship is in high repute in European countries, while it is in its

present a comprehensive analysis of Vortex Temporum, an ensemble piece Grisey wrote

Composer’s Reflection on Musical Time.” It is my view that Grisey’s Vortex Temporum

timbre between the movements.

he created, Grisey’s music especially catches my attention. My interest in Grisey is

introduction for interested readers, regardless of their knowledge of the spectral

movement, or the music of Grisey.

Chapter One: An Introduction to Spectral Music

descendants of increasingly sophisticated serialist techniques predominated throughout

Europe. A group of French composers gathered together, sharing similar thoughts

possible solutions associated with contemporary music. As a result, a French ensemble of

aesthetic movement of what would later be called spectral music, or spectralism.2

music since the 1980s.

Unlike other schools of composition such as serialism and minimalism, spectralism

“regarded by virtually every major practitioner of the trend as inappropriate, misleadingly

sequential or ‘cellular’ one; (4) organizational processes of a logarithmic or exponential,

Murail therefore disowned the label.

is simply a question of attitude.”9 The spectral attitude towards the phenomenon of

school reflecting an interest in motivic development. This approach constituted “a

universe of continuity and complex interrelations.”10 With the continuous phenomenon,

of communicating clearly with sonic material.”11

a remarkable position for the Feedback Studio. “The influence of Stockhausen is

melodic writing: Maiguashca’s work Monodias e Interludios (1984), Eötvös’ ensemble